Zanpakuto Art Online
by Masamune3800
Summary: This story takes many of the mechanics of the Bleach universe (Zanpakuto, Kido, ect.) and adds them to the mechanics of the game Sword Art Online. Note: This story will not be short. I plan on detailing every individual floor and boss fight instead of skipping over large increments of time. We will actually see the characters leveling up and becoming stronger throughout the story.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Welcome to my third story, Zanpakuto Art Online. Before I start explaining how this works I just want to say that I make use of OCs from my other two stories (Almost all of them are introduced in Damaged Souls). You don't need to go read my other stories to understand this one because I will give you a short description of their personalities and appearances, but if you want to have a better understanding of the characters you might want to check out my other stories. If you are reading this story without reading the other ones than feel free to PM me or leave a review if you need clarification.

For this story I am not simply going to stick some Bleach characters and my OC's into SaO. Instead I will combine elements of both universes to form its own universe, so this first A/N will end up being really long.

To start, this store takes place inside a game called Zanpakuto Art Online, which replaces Sword Art Online in the story. Many of the elements of the games are the same, but there are a few added in aspects. I have created my own stat system, and even created a series of formulas that are used to calculate the various other stats. Basically, I have worked out enough information that if the technology was available, this could be made into a fully complete game. I plan on putting the actual formulas I use to calculate the information in this story in the second A/N but they are not at all required in order to read the story, they are just there in case you are curious.

There are a total of seven base player stats that are used to calculate the other stats, these are:

Reiryoku  
Reiatsu Control  
Reiatsu Sensing  
Muscle  
Coordination  
Speed  
Bond

With the exception of Reiryoku these stats are all static and do not change unless you level. Reiryoku acts similar to stamina, it decreases as you do things and can be increased by eating. There are then nine player combat stats, their values change based on two stats used to represent the players mental state, these are Resolve and Intent. Resolve is how determined the player is, and Intent represents how much of their power the player wants to use. These two stats go from one to ten, and an average value is five, which is considered the natural level of Resolve and Intent. The stats affected by them are:

Reiatsu- Determined from Reiryoku, Reiatsu Control, Resolve, and Intent.  
Strength- Determined from Muscle and Reiatsu.  
Dexterity- Determined from Coordination and Reiatsu.  
Mobility- Determined from Speed and Reiatsu.  
Harmony- Determined from Bond, Resolve, and Intent.  
Zanjutsu- Determined from Zanjutsu Skill, Harmony, Strength, Dexterity, and Reiatsu.  
Hakuda- Determined from Hakuda Skill, Strength, and Reiatsu.  
Hoho- Determined from Hoho Skill, Dexterity, Mobility, and Reiatsu.  
Kido- Determined from Kido Skill, Reiatsu Control, and Reiatsu.

Strength, Dexterity, and Mobility are self-explanatory. Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hoho, and Kido are the current power of techniques executed within those four categories. Harmony is a representation of how in sync you are with your Zanpakuto spirit, and Reiatsu is how much Reiryoku you are outputting at one time.

All equip-able items fall into one of two categories, Weapons and Armor. The stats for a weapon are as follows:

Shape  
Edge  
Mass  
Heaviness  
Weight  
Durability

Shape contains the data for the physical shape of the weapon. Edge is a modifier to determine how much damage and of what type the weapon deals. Mass is the physical mass behind the weapon when it is used. Heaviness is unrelated to mass, but instead describes how difficult the weapon is to swing. Weight is the inventory weight of a weapon, this also is different than mass because some special weapons might have a special feature that changes mass (For example, a weapon that is stored as a handle, but forms a blade out of nearby rocks, the handle is the inventory weight, the mass with the rocks is the mass.) The category of weapon also includes shields, which have a large mass and heaviness, but very low edge stats, blocking an attack with a sword is the same as blocking it with a shield because they are considered the same sort of equipment. A weapon is also designated as off-hand, main-hand, or two-handed. In general shields are considered off-hand weapons and swords are considered main-hand. Weapons may also come in sets of sword and shield, or two swords but these weapons are usually part of a unique skill.

The stats for an armor item are similar but different, there are many different parts of the body that can have an armor item, some armors cover multiple slots but all armor items have the same sorts of stats which are added up to a total of everything equipped. The stats are:

Shape  
Heaviness  
Weight  
Physical Resist- Divided into Stab, Slash, and Blunt.  
Magical Resist- Deals with Reiatsu based damage.  
Elemental Resist- Fire, Water, Air, Electric, Heat, Cold.  
De-buff Resist- Resistance to various de-buffs such as poison and paralysis.

The Shape stat for armor is determined both for each individual piece and for a full set after it is equipped. In both cases the Shape stat also details portions of the armor that have different stats, which can be viewed by the player as a three-dimensional model with hit-zones. As mentioned before armor can cover up multiple slots, such as boots taking up both a foot slot and an ankle slot.

In Zanpakuto Art Online there is also magic, known as Kido, it is considered a Skill and different spells and abilities are unlocked at different points. Each spell is also considered its own skill and has its own mastery level. In order to cast a spell one must say the name and rank (Also an incantation for some spells). When you have full mastery of a spell you are able to cast it with just the name.

The Bond stat that I mentioned earlier is arguably the most important stat in the game. It represents the relationship with your Zanpakuto spirit, which is generated based on your own personality. Each one has its own AI and as you form a relationship with the spirit your Bond stat increases. This also makes the Bond stat particularly difficult to level up, as the AI for the Zanpakuto spirits is a nearly perfect imitation of a human. Increasing Bond has a number of effects, the first being that it increases your Harmony, and by extension, your Zanjutsu, which is the most effective offensive stat to use because of the high modifiers on later tier weapons. The second effect of leveling Bond can be found once you reach level one-hundred in the stat. At that point you are given a set of armor and weapons known as True Weapons and True Armor. These items have infinite durability and zero inventory weight; the stats of these items depend on the Harmony stat, which makes them incredibly powerful and superior to nearly any weapon that can be found in the game naturally. The final effect of leveling Bond is found when you reach five-hundred, it is known as True Release, which is essentially a unique skill. True Release typically gives significant stat bonuses as well as changes to the shape of a weapon and additional special abilities. True release also affects True Armor. Another thing about the Bond stat is that there is no upper cap to it; this is balanced out by the sheer difficulty of leveling Bond. Due to the nature of the Bond stat as a relationship with another personality, Beta Testers are able to retain ten percent of their Bond stat even though all character progress is wiped. The easiest way to level the Bond stat is to 'feed' other players True Weapons to your own True Weapon, but this causes the other player to permanently lose their True Weapon and thus is usually frowned upon.

The difference between stats and skills is fairly simple; Stats have an upper limit of one-thousand, and are the same for every player. Skills also tend to have an upper limit of one-thousand with some exceptions, but outside of a few common Skills they are largely dependent on the player and thus much more diverse, however; all non-unique skills can be learned by any other player.

Health increases each level; the amount it increases by depends on your current stats and the level you are at. Leveling is the same as in any other RPG, with various events giving you experience. The difference is that your level only directly affects your health and is instead a reflection of your current power. Every time a stat increases you gain one level. Skill increases and the Bond stat do not affect your level.

The final detail I have to mention is the character creation process. Upon logging in the game generates your Zanpakuto Spirit and also distributes thirty points over six stats; Reiryoku, Reiatsu Control, Reiatsu Sensing, Muscle, Coordination, and Speed, the distribution is determined based on your own personality. In addition to the stats players are also given the option to permanently set the Kido skill to zero in exchange for a permanent one-point-five multiplier to the Muscle and Coordination stats. This option was included in order to accommodate fighting styles that do not contain Kido and give them a form of compensation to keep them competitive with other players. This multiplier ignores the usual one-thousand cap for the Muscle and Coordination stats, instead allowing a maximum value of one-thousand-five-hundred.

Now that I have finished explaining the mechanics of Zanpakuto Art Online I will introduce you to my set of OCs that will be taken from my other two stories, even if you have read my other stories you should skim this section as the relationships between the OCs will be slightly different than you are used to.

* * *

Name: Rein (Beta Tester, OC)  
Gender: Male  
Age: 18  
Height: 188 cm  
Eyes: Blue  
Hair: Black  
Appearance: Fairly thin, pale skin, short and spiky hair.  
Personality: Very calm, also perceptive, does not like to show off. Knows his own limits well.  
Relationships: Tsume (Sister) Anima (Brother) Klein (Friend)

Name: Anima (OC)  
Gender: Male  
Age: 16  
Height: 176 cm  
Eyes: Navy Blue  
Hair: Purple  
Appearance: Fairly thin, hair is swept to the left and reaches his shoulders.  
Personality: On the surface is very calm and polite; he has a dark side and enjoys fighting quite a bit.  
Relationships: Rein (Brother) Tsume (Sister) Amber (Friend)

Name: Tsume (OC)  
Gender: Female  
Age: 14  
Height: 148 cm  
Eyes: Electric Blue (Slitted pupils)  
Hair: Dark Grey  
Appearance: Exceptionally pale skin, petite figure. Shoulder length hair that covers her right eye.  
Personality: Shy and nervous most of the time. Stutters occasionally and blushes a lot. Slightly clumsy.  
Relationships: Rein (Brother) Anima (Brother)

Name: Senna  
Gender: Female  
Age: 16  
Height: 168 cm  
Eyes: Orange  
Hair: Black  
Appearance: Same Senna as in the Bleach movie.  
Personality: Moderately hyper and childish, Can be serious at times.  
Relationships: Saiden (Friend) Ryuga (Friend)

Name: Saiden (OC)  
Gender: Male  
Age: 15  
Height: 170 cm  
Eyes: Dark Green  
Hair: White  
Appearance: Hair is very long and in a braid.  
Personality: Extremely quiet, tends to hide emotions but is loyal to his friends.  
Relationships: Senna (Friend) Ryuga (Friend)

Name: Ryuga (OC)  
Gender: Male  
Age: 17  
Height: 194 cm  
Eyes: Mint Green  
Hair: Black  
Appearance: Tall, hair reaches his neck and is fairly straight. Fairly muscular and fit.  
Personality: Has a short temper and is very direct and blunt. Not very smart  
Relationships: Senna (Friend) Saiden (Friend) Tachikiru (Friend)

Name: Amber (Beta Tester, OC)  
Gender: Female  
Age: 16  
Height: 176 cm  
Eyes: Silver  
Hair: Light Green  
Appearance: Hair is straight and reaches her waist. Thin yet well-developed figure.  
Personality: Usually calm but gets playful occasionally and likes to mess with people.  
Relationships: Asuna (Friends with her older brother) Anima (Friend)

Name: Tachikiru (Beta Tester, OC)  
Gender: Male  
Age: 16  
Height: 182 cm  
Eyes: Green  
Hair: Black  
Appearance: Thin, pale skin, hair is messy and reaches the middle of his back.  
Personality: Quick to anger but also lazy at times. Does not take well to being teased.  
Relationships: Ichigo (Friend) Klein (Cousin) Ryuga (Friend)

Name: Ichigo  
Gender: Male  
Age: 15  
Height: 174 cm  
Eyes: Brown  
Hair: Orange  
Appearance: If you know Bleach you know Ichigo.  
Personality: See above.  
Relationships: Tachikiru (Friend) Klein (Friend)

The names and appearances of these characters will be the same in-game and out-of-game for simplicities sake. Also, I did not put any of the normal SaO Characters here, all of them will be in the story. I made Klein have a few friends with my OCs because I feel like it fits his personality to have a lot of friends. Amber is also good friends with Asuna, but met her brother first. Any Bleach characters not mentioned here will not be in the story (Unless I get a lot of requests for someone to be put in the story, then I will look for a way to stick them in.) Also, I hate to do this to you, but there will be one more list in this chapter, it will detail the starting stats of each of the characters in this story, but after that I promise that the lists will be much fewer in number outside of the first chapter.

Zanpakuto Art Online

Chapter 1

* * *

Rein opened the door to his house, carrying two copies of the just-released game, Zanpakuto Art Online, and two NerveGear helmets, one for his younger brother and one for his younger sister. Rein had been in the Beta Test since day one, and was even involved in the very late stages of the Alpha Test. He had been accepted to the Alpha Test in order to help the game developers work out some of the bugs in their physics engine, a field which Rein was exceptionally gifted in despite his age. He had already pre-ordered one copy of the game for himself, and once he had told his siblings about the game and what it was like both of them seemed quite eager to try it out.

"Rein, you are back early." Tsume, his younger sister observed.

"Yeah, one of the developers I helped out was there, he let me cut in line, we will most likely be among the first people to actually log in other than the other Beta Testers." Rein replied, walking up the stairs and placing the games and helmets on a table.

Anima came out of his room "You got them?"

Rein nodded and passed a helmet and game to him "Before you log in I have a few tips for you. First, make sure you use your actual appearance for your avatar, if you don't then the transition from the game back to reality feels strange. I am going to use my real name to make my character so add me as soon as you get in. Another tip, stay away from the option that disables your Kido, while the bonus stats are really nice I don't think it is worth losing the utility of Kido. I can explain the rest in game."

"Sounds good." Anima responded, he took out his phone and dialed a number, walking back into his room.

Rein pulled out his own phone and also dialed a number, waiting for an answer. A few moments later a familiar voice spoke "Hey Rein, what's up?"

"Not much Klein, Anima, Tsume, and myself are going to log in now, when you get into the game add me; I will use my real name for my character." Rein said.

"Sure, I am next in line so I will see you there. My cousin and one of his friends will be joining me." Klein replied.

"Sounds like fun, see you." Rein finished, hanging up the phone.

Anima stepped out of his room "Hey Rein, remember that friend I told you about who was also in the Beta Test?" Rein nodded and Anima continued "She said she is logging in now with her friend's sister so we should meet up with them."

"Alright, I just spoke to one of my friends and we will be meeting up with them as well. At this rate we will have our own little army before lunch time." Rein joked. He quickly helped his siblings set up and log in to the game before entering his own room and lying down on the bed with the NerveGear on his head "Link Start."

Before he loaded in to the game he was taken through the usual series of calibrations and then was greeted with a text box in front of him that said 'Generating Stats. Would you like to use your actual appearance or a custom appearance?' Rein selected actual appearance and entered the name 'Rein' when he was prompted. Once he had finished his stats had been generated.

Reiryoku: 2  
Reiatsu Control: 10  
Reiatsu Sensing: 10  
Muscle: 2  
Coordination: 2  
Speed: 2  
Bond: 10 (You have retained ten percent of your Bond stat from the Beta Test)

Rein was quite surprised at this, by his calculations having a bond stat that high would make his Zanjutsu above average for other level one players. Of course, due to his low Muscle and Coordination stats he would still be best off using Kido, which was most heavily impacted by Reiatsu Control. As he thought he was placed into the game. Once he had fully spawned he raised his right hand, opening the menu and going to friends, noticing four requests from Anima, Tsume, Amber, and Asuna, clearly Klein had not logged in yet so he sent a request to the name, it would be waiting for him when he logged in. He accepted all four and headed to their location, as he walked he went through his inventory, sorting the few items he had into an arrangement he was more comfortable to and equipping his starting armor and weapon. The weapon did not feel right at all, compared to what he had been using during the Beta Test. He had been the only Beta Tester to get his Bond stat to one-hundred during the test, and thus was mostly used to using his True Weapon and Armor. He shook his head and kept walking; he would start working on his Bond later.

* * *

Tsume was very excited as she logged in, thinking about how it might be easier to get along with people in a game where the shape of her pupils would not put people off as much. She pressed the button to use her actual appearance for her character and entered 'Tsume' for her name. Her starting stats were fairly balanced.

Reiryoku: 6  
Reiatsu Control: 6  
Reiatsu Sensing: 6  
Muscle: 4  
Coordination: 4  
Speed: 4  
Bond: 1

Based on what Rein had told her she guessed that Zanjutsu and Kido would be her two greatest strengths. When she loaded in to the game she reached out her right hand and quickly sent out two friend requests, to Anima and Rein. She also sent a message to Rein with the stats she had started with so he could give her advice.

* * *

Anima logged in, feeling very excited as he pressed the 'Use your actual appearance' button and entered 'Anima' for his character name. His stats seemed to be very focused into one area.

Reiryoku: 2  
Reiatsu Control: 3  
Reiatsu Sensing: 3  
Muscle: 10  
Coordination: 10  
Speed: 2  
Bond: 1

He sent his stats to Rein, and also sent friend requests to his siblings and his friend, Amber.

* * *

Amber was very relaxed as she logged in to the game. She had just came back from her friend's house where she had been helping his younger sister, Asuna, set up and log in to the game. She lazily selected the 'Use your actual appearance' option and entered 'Amber' for her name. Her stats seemed fairly good; they were mostly focused in one area but still had a good spread throughout the other areas.

Reiryoku: 2  
Reiatsu Control: 8  
Reiatsu Sensing: 8  
Muscle: 2  
Coordination: 6  
Speed: 4  
Bond: 3 (You have retained ten percent of your Bond stat from the Beta Test)

She frowned when she saw her elevated Bond. Not only did that give her a slight advantage over other players, but it also meant that all the Beta Testers would be stronger, especially Rein, who had somehow managed to form his True Weapon and Armor in the Beta. With her stats her two strengths would be Zanjutsu and Kido, her Hoho was good but not amazing. She raised her right hand and sent friend requests to Asuna, Anima, Rein, and Tsume.

* * *

Asuna nervously logged in to the game. Originally the game had belonged to her older brother, but he had left on a trip today and instead had allowed her to try it with Amber. She elected to use her actual appearance and entered 'Asuna' for her character name. She saw a set of stats appear and had no real idea what they meant.

Reiryoku: 3  
Reiatsu Control: 3  
Reiatsu Sensing: 3  
Muscle: 5  
Coordination: 8  
Speed: 8  
Bond: 1

She raised her right hand and opened the menu, sending a friend request to Amber and another person who Amber had told her to add, Rein. She sent Amber a copy of her stats so she could help her.

* * *

(A/N: I am just going to stick with one name for the characters that don't change their name in game; it is easier for you to read and for me to write.)

Klein logged in to his new game, Zanpakuto Art Online. He eagerly went through the character creation process, deciding to customize it but still used 'Klein' for his name. His stats seemed to be fairly balanced.

Reiryoku: 4  
Reiatsu Control: 4  
Reiatsu Sensing: 4  
Muscle: 6  
Coordination: 6  
Speed: 6  
Bond: 1

Once he was in the game he sent out friend requests to his cousin, Tachikiru and his friend Ichigo. He also accepted a request from his good friend Rein. He decided to send a copy of his stats to Tachikiru, who had also been in the Beta Test.

* * *

Ichigo eventually figured out how to log in to the game, deciding to use his actual appearance and name. When his stats were generated he noted an option to permanently set his Kido stat to zero in exchange for increased Muscle and Coordination. Kido did not sound like his sort of thing so he selected the option.

Reiryoku: 10  
Reiatsu Control: 1  
Reiatsu Sensing: 1  
Muscle: 15  
Coordination: 6  
Speed: 4  
Bond: 1

Once he had spawned he accepted a friend request from Klein, his friend's cousin and sent a request to Tachikiru along with a copy of his stats.

* * *

Tachikiru logged in to Zanpakuto Art Online, rushing through the character creation by simply selecting his actual appearance and name. His stats were very appealing to him.

Reiryoku: 3  
Reiatsu Control: 4  
Reiatsu Sensing: 1  
Muscle: 1  
Coordination: 10  
Speed: 10  
Bond: 4 (You have retained ten percent of your Bond stat from the Beta Test)

His stats would give him a very respectable proficiency in Hoho, which was his favorite aspect of the game, while still maintaining a decent level of Zanjutsu and Kido due to his high Bond, which he did not think much of. He opened the menu and accepted friend requests from Ichigo and Klein, also sending one to his friend Ryuga. He looked over the Stats that Ichigo had sent him and planted his palm firmly on his face. With only one point in Reiatsu Control he would not be able to do much of anything; at least his Zanjutsu and Hakuda would be fairly high though.

* * *

Ryuga logged in to Zanpakuto Art Online, deciding to use his actual appearance and entering 'Ryuga' for his name. As his stats were being generated he selected the option to disable Kido in favor of better physical stats as the idea of magic just didn't fit his style.

Reiryoku: 8  
Reiatsu Control: 2  
Reiatsu Sensing: 2  
Muscle: 15  
Coordination: 6  
Speed: 4  
Bond: 1

He opened the menu and accepted a friend request from his friend Tachikiru, and also sent requests to Senna and Saiden. Since he had absolutely no idea what the numbers meant he decided to send them to Tachikiru, who would most likely be able to figure it out.

* * *

Senna logged in to the game, selecting her actual appearance and 'Senna' for her character name. Her stats seemed fairly evenly spread out, but she had no idea if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Reiryoku: 5  
Reiatsu Control: 6  
Reiatsu Sensing: 4  
Muscle: 3  
Coordination: 6  
Speed: 6  
Bond: 1

She accepted a friend request from Ryuga and sent one to Saiden.

* * *

Saiden logged in to Zanpakuto Art Online, deciding to go with his actual appearance and name to make himself easier to recognize for his friends. His stats seemed to be rather random.

Reiryoku: 2  
Reiatsu Control: 8  
Reiatsu Sensing: 4  
Muscle: 10  
Coordination: 5  
Speed: 1  
Bond 1

He accepted friend requests from Senna and Ryuga, quickly heading to their location.

* * *

Kirito eagerly logged in to Zanpakuto Art Online, the game he had been Beta Testing for a long time. He copied the appearance he had used for the Beta Test and entered 'Kirito' for his name. His stats amused him quite a bit.

Reiryoku: 5  
Reiatsu Control: 5  
Reiatsu Sensing: 5  
Muscle: 5  
Coordination: 5  
Speed: 5  
Bond: 5 (You have retained ten percent of your Bond stat from the Beta Test)

He was fairly surprised that the developers had decided to let the Beta Testers start off with such an advantage, considering their experience was already enough of an advantage. He supposed that with his dead even stats he would be able to do everything fairly well. He quickly headed out of the spawning town, wasting no time admiring his surroundings.

"Hey wait up!" A voice said behind him.

He turned around and saw a tall man with long red hair "What is it?" He asked coldly.

"Well, judging by how you ran out of the town so quickly you are a Beta Tester. I was just wondering if you could show me the ropes." He asked "My name is Klein by the way."

"I'm Kirito, I guess I could help you out, I am not in any real rush anyway." Kirito replied, leading him out of the town.

* * *

Rein looked at his map, noting that Klein's position was heading out of the town. He sighed before turning to the group behind him "Come on, one of my friends is getting ahead of himself, we should follow him." He led Anima, Tsume, Amber, and Asuna out of the town. They arrived at Klein's position just in time to see Klein, assisted by someone that Rein vaguely remembered from the Beta, successfully perform a Zanjutsu Skill and kill a monster. Rein waved his hand, drawing their attention.

"Hey Klein, what's up." Rein asked in a relaxed voice.

"Oh, I just noticed that this guy here was a Beta Tester and asked him if he could help me out a bit." Klein explained.

"I thought you looked familiar, if I remember correctly you are Kirito right?" Rein commented.

Kirito nodded "And you're Rein, the only Beta Tester to reach one-hundred Bond."

Rein scratched the back of head sheepishly "Yeah."

A few seconds later another group of people arrived at their location. The group consisted of Senna, Saiden, Ryuga, Ichigo, and Tachikiru.

Tachikiru spoke up "Hey Klein."

"Hey Tachikiru, this is great, now there are three Beta Testers here." Klein said happily.

"Four actually." Amber stated.

After introductions had been made the four Beta Testers explained the game to the other eight players in the area. Tsume decided to take on a monster and Rein followed her. She drew her sword and ran at it; however, as she got close she tripped and fell. The monster advanced on her and prepared to attack.

"Hado number one, Sho." Rein said, pointing his finger at the boar. He paid close attention to the three bars below his health representing Intent, Resolve, and Reiatsu. He managed to max out his Intent and raise his resolve significantly, giving him a Reiatsu level of approximately six-point-two. He released the spell on the boar, the level of power behind it easily killing it instantly. He quickly closed the rewards menu and helped his sister up from the ground.

"I am going to go out on a limb here and say you started with ten in Reiatsu Control." Amber said dryly.

"Yes. My stats are 4/10/10/2/2/2/10." Rein informed.

"Why would you tell other players your stats?" Kirito looked confused.

"Because I trust everyone here." Rein answered, giving Kirito a strange look.

Before they could say anything Klein spoke "Guys, there is no log out button!"

Everyone else opened their menus and nobody found the button.

"Don't worry too much; a bug this serious is bound to be fixed really quickly." Rein comforted, confident that they would be able to log out soon.

Just then everyone was teleported to a plaza, where a large, red, hooded figure in the sky was waiting. All around them other players began to appear.

The figure spoke "Welcome to the Tutorial, here I will explain all of the rules of Zanpakuto Art Online. The first and most important rule is that you may not log out; any attempt to remove the helmet will result in your actual death in the real world. In addition, if your hit-points reach zero in game you will die in the real world. The only way for you to escape this is to clear all one-hundred floors and beat the game. I strongly urge you not to worry about your real bodies, as preparations have already been made to keep them alive."

One of the players yelled "This must be joke, there is no way you could do that."

In response the figure created images of news articles "As you can see this is very real, a significant number of players have already lost their lives due to attempts to remove the helmets by family members and friends. None of you need to worry about that anymore though, as I said arrangements have been made. In case you doubt the truth of my words feel free to examine the gift I have given all of you." After that the figure dissolved. Across the plaza there were a large number of shocked screams as the players all took the form of their actual bodies rather than the appearances they had created. Other than Kirito and Klein nobody in Rein's group changed in appearance.

Rein noted that some of the people around him looked panicked. He quickly spoke to the other eleven people with him "Come with me guys, we will figure something out." He led his friends out of the plaza before speaking again "Based on what he said we have two options, either stay here where it is safe and wait for everyone else to beat the game, or we can go try to beat the game ourselves. Obviously this decision is your own, and I will not blame anyone if you want to stay safe."

To Rein's shock, everyone in the group stuck with him. Kirito spoke up "We will not be able to level effectively in a group this large, we need to split up a bit."

Rein nodded "Yes, but before we do everyone here should add everyone else, this way we can stay in contact. If you have any questions at all about what to do feel free to ask me at any time. My suggestion is that we split into four groups, each led by one of the Beta Testers."

Kirito shook his head "I am sorry, but I work best alone." He turned to leave.

"That's fine, but don't get yourself killed." Klein said with a sigh.

"Good luck Kirito." Rein said before turning back to the rest of the group "Right, so my suggestion still holds, we should divide into three groups, each led by a Beta Tester." The rest of the group seemed to agree so Amber, Tachikiru, and Rein stood apart from each other "Everyone come join one of us." Anima and Tsume both walked over to Rein. Ichigo and Klein joined Tachikiru and Asuna joined Amber. This left Senna, Saiden, and Ryuga without a group "Looks like you guys will have to split up." Rein said sadly.

"I am sure we will be fine." Senna replied, folding her arms and walking over to Rein's group. Ryuga joined Tachikiru and Saiden joined Amber.

"Ok, I guess this will be it for a while, everyone be careful." Rein said and the groups went their separate ways.

* * *

Words: 3,268 (Without A/Ns, I usually average 4,000 words per chapter.)

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter; leave me a review if you want to say something.

Here are the various formulas I came up with in case anyone is interested and likes math like I do…

ZanSkill, HakSkill, HohSkill, and KidSkill all represent the skill levels of Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hoho, and Kido respectively.

Reiatsu = Reiryoku * ReiatsuControl * sqrt( Intent * Resolve ) / 50  
Strength = Muscle * ( 1 + sqrt( Reiatsu ) / 5 )  
Dexterity = Coordination * ( 1 + sqrt( Reiatsu ) / 5 )  
Mobility = Speed * ( 1 + sqrt( Reiatsu ) / 5 )  
Harmony = Bond * sqrt( Intent * Resolve ) / 5  
Zanjutsu = ZanSkill * ( 1 + sqrt( Harmony * sqrt( Reiatsu ) / 5 ) * sqrt( Strength * Dexterity ) )  
Hakuda = HakSkill * ( 1 + Strength * sqrt( Reiatsu ) / 5 )  
Hoho = HohSkill * ( 1 + sqrt( Dexterity * Mobility ) * sqrt( Reiatsu ) / 5 )  
Kido = KidSkill * ( 1 + ReiatsuControl * sqrt(sqrt( Reiatsu ) / 5 * ReiatsuControl ) )


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Wow, people really liked the first chapter, that is good to know. Before I get started I have a few things to say. First, I plan on writing about every boss fight, including the ones that were skipped in normal storyline. While I like to think of myself as creative, I don't think I will be able to come up with that many separate bosses and still make the fights unique. If anyone is willing to help me out with some ideas please send me a PM, all I am looking for is some general ideas and concepts, I will likely end up combining many of the aspects of what people send in to create the Bosses. You can also send in some of your favorite bosses in games you play if you would like, I am just looking for some general ideas to build off of. The other thing I would like to know is what you think of the Stat System being involved in the story; do you want me to keep telling you guys the characters stats as they level up or do you think it is annoying and makes the story harder to read, I am fine with doing it either way.

Replies to reviews:

Forgotten64: Really glad you enjoy this story so far. In all honesty you are probably the biggest reason I enjoy writing these stories, you have reviewed almost every chapter of all my stories and I really appreciate it

Rexfan1333: Thanks, here is the new chapter.

madking97: Yeah, it did take a while; I spent a few days just playing around with numbers and ideas trying to figure out how to make it work well.

Weaver Chance: I actually fully agree with what you said, my original plan was to reveal what happened in the Beta Test gradually as the story went on but I decided to give a fairly large chunk of the information about it in this chapter instead. I hope that this explains a bit more about my reasoning for what I did. I do actually agree with you, but somehow I felt like giving him all fives would be a good idea, looking back on it I would have given him six or seven. The reason Rein has ten is basically because that is his 'thing' so to speak. He is the main character in one of my stories and a fairly important character in my other story; I wanted to preserve what I felt are his core strengths through to this story as well. (Also, other than the Bond Rein got pretty bad starting stats, he has ten points in Reiatsu Sensing, which does not contribute to combat abilities at all; if Kirito and Rein were to fight at level one Kirito would probably win.)

Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer1: I only own the boring kind of bleach…  
Disclaimer2: I don't own Sword Art Online…

Zanpakuto Art Online

Chapter 2

* * *

Rein, Anima, Tsume, and Senna all walked out to the large field outside the starting town, preparing to begin leveling.

"Before we begin would you mind sending me your current stats? It will make it easier for me to determine your current strengths." Rein requested, the other three all raised their right hands and Rein quickly received three messages.

He read them through; Anima was 2/3/3/10/10/2/1, Tsume was 6/6/6/4/4/4/1, and Senna was 5/6/4/3/6/6/1.

"Right, so Anima, Your greatest strength is your Zanjutsu, followed by your Kido, then Hakuda, then Hoho. Tsume, your greatest strength is your Kido, followed by your Zanjutsu, and your Hoho and Hakuda are tied. Senna, your strength is also your Kido, followed by Zanjutsu, Hoho, and finally Hakuda. Obviously as you level your stats the order could easily change so try to come up with an order for what you prioritize most." Rein suggested.

Anima spoke up first "I am fine with Zanjutsu being my strength, that is really all I want to focus on."

Tsume was next "I want to focus on Zanjutsu, Hoho, and Kido."

"And I want to focus on everything." Senna said cheerfully.

"Alright, Anima, the best weapon for you to use if you solely focus on Zanjutsu would be your True weapon, but since that isn't an option right now just say whatever type of weapon sounds like the most fun." Rein stated.

"I think I would like to use a katana." Anima answered.

"Sounds good, the only issue is that Katana is an Extra Skill that you unlock by using curved swords. The starting sword is not a curved sword and you can't afford to buy one yet. For now just go kill some monsters until you get some money." Rein paused "Tsume, considering what you want to do it would be best to go with a one handed weapon of some sort, either a dagger or a short sword. Either option is light enough for you to use Hoho effectively while leaving your off-hand open to cast spells." He paused again "And Senna, I would say you just go kill some monsters and find what style of combat feels the best for you."

"Rein, what about you?" Senna asked.

"Well my stats are 4/10/10/2/2/2/10, making my greatest strength Kido, which is about double the power of Tsume's and yours. Despite my low physical stats my high Bond makes my Zanjutsu fairly strong, my greatest weakness is my Hakuda. Since I already know what form my True Weapon takes I know what skills to train from the start. I am just going to kill monsters alongside you for the time being since I am still level one." Rein explained, beginning to lead them away.

"Why is your Bond higher than ours?" Tsume asked.

"The developers decided to let the Beta Testers retain ten percent of their Bond. They never said anything about it or everyone in the Beta would have spent the entire time trying to level it. I am honestly not too sure why they decided to let it carry over, my best guess is that they wanted to give the Beta Testers some ability to lead the way for the other players, and giving them a bit of a stat bonus was the easiest way to do that." Rein replied.

"So that means your Bond was at one-hundred in the Beta, right?" Anima asked "What exactly happened in the Beta, did you get to see any of the Bosses?"

"In the Beta we only managed to get to the tenth floor. Of the nine bosses we faced I was only present for the ninth one." Rein answered.

"Why? Wouldn't it be smartest to learn as much as you could about the game to give yourself an advantage when it went live?" Senna inquired.

Rein scratched the back of his head "Yes it would have, but the Bond feature really caught my eye, I spent the majority of my time communicating with my Zanpakuto rather than leveling my other stats, my level at the end of the Beta was six, the top testers managed to reach the mid-twenties." Rein explained "Basically, what happened was I sat around on floor one for the first twenty-six days of the Beta simply leveling the Bond stat. On the twenty-seventh day my Bond reached one-hundred and I formed my True Weapon and Armor. Once I did that I decided to work on my other stats, by the twenty-eighth day of the test I had made my way up to the ninth floor, where most of the other players were preparing to fight the boss. I joined in the fight and managed to contribute significantly despite my low level."

"So you are saying that True Weapons are overpowered?" Tsume said.

"Yes and no, mine did give me power well beyond my level, but I was still weaker compared to the top testers. In my opinion the best way to go about leveling your stats is to split your time between Bond and other stats, the biggest problem with only leveling Bond is that it does not increase your actual level, and thus does not increase your HP. Especially now that death in the game now applies to the real world as well I would not even think about risking only focusing on Bond, because one little slip up means death." Rein stated "The benefit to being inside the game permanently is that you can spend the day leveling combat stats and the night leveling your Bond. I will give you the basics for leveling Bond later today, but for now our goal is to hit level three."

"Where are we going to go and level? It looks like pretty much all the monsters have already been exterminated." Anima asked.

"You'll see." Rein assured. A minute or so later they entered a dense forest "This area of the forest is safe; just don't go too far from this position until you hit level two." He headed forward and engaged a boar, easily dispatching it with a single slash from the starting sword. He moved on to the next monster and dispatched it just as easily, clearly the developers had decreased the difficulty of these early enemies in order to allow the players a fair chance at learning the game.

About an hour later the group met up again at the edge of the forest "How did it go?" Rein asked.

(A/N: Just to clarify this, they all ranked up skills two times but that is completely unrelated to their level increase, it just happened to be the same for the earlier levels.)

"I leveled up my Reiryoku twice; I also managed to raise my Zanjutsu Skill by two ranks." Anima stated.

"I increased my Reiatsu Control and Speed, my Kido and Zanjutsu also went up by one each." Tsume said.

"And I increased my Reiatsu Control and my Muscle. My Hakuda and Kido skills went up by one rank." Senna informed "Rein, how about you?"

"I managed to get my Coordination and Speed up by one each, and ranked up my Zanjutsu and Hoho." Rein answered "All of us should have enough money to buy the weapons we need in town, and I also made some extra to get us a place to stay for the night." Rein led them into the town.

* * *

Soon thereafter the group was sitting in a room that Rein had rented. Rein and Anima had both purchased curved swords while Tsume had bought a fairly long dagger.

"So Rein, what does the Reiatsu Sensing stat do?" Senna asked.

"It is a utility statistic mostly. As you level it you gain access to more information about the things around you, at level twenty you are able to see your enemies' health bars and at points after that you get the ability to see various stats, and eventually get the ability to detect the effect of a skill before it is actually cast. It also gives you the ability to sense people nearby you and effectively 'ignore' a portion of their hiding skill." Rein paused "The majority of the players in the Beta leveled it to twenty and then left it alone because it offers no direct combat benefits."

"It must be annoying that you started with so many points in it then." Tsume commented.

"Not really, I also started with a high Bond so it balances out; right now our combat stats are pretty much identical." Rein answered "Anyway, now it is time to teach you about Bond." He took a breath "Bond is a very unique stat; it has no effect on your level and cannot be leveled by training. Bond is a numerical representation of how well you get along with your Zanpakuto Spirit."

"What is a Zanpakuto Spirit?" Senna asked.

"It is an extremely realistic AI that is generated based on your personality as soon as you log in. Sometimes it may be a total flip of your personality, other times it might just have slightly changed extremes, but the most important part is that it is a reflection of your own personality. In order to raise Bond you must enter your inner world, which is an infinite landscape based on your personality. Once you are there you should be able to find your Zanpakuto Spirit fairly easily; when you find it just speak to it, ask it questions and it will ask you questions. The goal is to form a relationship with it; how you form it is up to you." Rein explained.

"And how do we enter our Inner World?" Anima questioned.

"Just close your eyes and try to clear your mind, it is not exactly easy to explain but you should be able to get the hang of it." Rein replied.

The group all did as he instructed and eventually managed to enter their Inner Worlds.

* * *

Rein looked out across the familiar expanse of sand that was his Inner World. The sand was pure white and the sky was entirely covered with thick, dark clouds that let forth a heavy rain which was all absorbed by the sand beneath his feet. The only source of light was an abnormally huge moon that floated beneath the layers of clouds. There were no major features on the moon, but if Rein looked closely he could actually see sand dunes, suggesting that it was a mirror of the desert he was currently standing on.

In front of him stood a figure with long, blue hair that seemed to become flames as it extended out from his head. He was approximately Rein's height and their faces were quite similar. The figure wore a long black coat that also seemed to dissolve into flames at the edges; the center of the coat seemed to adhere to his chest and looked like it was made from segmented black armor. The armor extended across his entire body, stopping at his neck; the armor ended in spiked gloves on his hands and spiked boots on his feet.

"Hello Rein." The figure said calmly, extending his hand "I am your Zanpakuto Spirit."

Rein took the hand "Hello." He wasn't sure how much his Zanpakuto knew about the Beta Test and how much had been wiped from his memory so he decided to play it safe.

"So Rein, I am aware that we have met before, but the memories seem to have been blocked off, would you mind filling me in?" The spirit asked.

"Sure." Rein replied "I was a Beta Tester; I spent a lot of time speaking to you. I would guess that your memory was blocked through some means when the game went live."

"Most likely. My apologies, but I guess we will have to start over with our interaction." The blue haired man said sadly.

"I don't really mind. Honestly I really enjoyed this part of the game." Rein answered "You are interesting to talk to."

"What do you mean by that? I am based off of your personality so speaking with me would not be much different than speaking to yourself." The spirit asked.

"I'm not so sure about that." Rein paused "So what do you think about the game becoming reality, that death here means death in reality?"

"I think that the best option is to take it as the truth and play as though your life really does depend on it." The spirit answered.

"That wasn't what I meant. I was asking what you thought about the developer's decision." Rein clarified, putting his hands in his pockets.

The spirit paused for a moment "I think that it doesn't make much sense, his motive is unclear. If he wanted to simply kill everyone here he would have made the beginning monsters much more challenging, or even rigged the game to automatically kill everyone after a set time. From his actions it almost seems like he wants the players to succeed, but if he wanted everyone to survive he would not have made the game work like this. I don't really know how to explain it."

Rein nodded "It seems like he believes that this is the way a game is meant to be played."

"Exactly." The spirit agreed "Although, at this point it isn't even a game anymore, it might as well be reality."

"That was probably his goal; he didn't want to make a game. He must have wanted an alternate reality. The real question is why he is doing this; does he want to simply watch us as we struggle, does he want to play god with us, or maybe even something completely different." Rein stated.

"Those are questions that only he can answer." The spirit observed.

"Yeah, and I doubt I will ever get the chance. There really is no way he is going to get away with doing this and I doubt anyone is going to let me sit down and have a conversation about this with him, all we can do is sit and wonder." Rein said sadly "Well, nice speaking with you again, but I think I should go back now and make sure my friends aren't having any issues."

"Good idea." The spirit said with a smile "Do visit again soon."

Rein nodded and closed his eyes.

* * *

When he opened his eyes he was back in the room he had rented. Senna and Anima had both opened their eyes, but Tsume still seemed to be in her Inner world.

"How did it go for you two?" Rein asked.

"It was amazing, I love my Inner World!" Senna said excitedly "I raised my Bond by two levels too."

"I raised mine by three, what about you Rein?" Anima inquired.

"I managed to get it up to twelve." Rein answered "Did you get along with your Zanpakuto Spirits?" Anima and Tsume nodded and Rein continued "Good, once your Bond reaches twenty you learn what type of weapon your True Weapon will be, so reach that point as fast as you can and then you can begin training that weapon skill."

A few minutes later Tsume opened her eyes.

"How did it go?" Rein asked her.

Tsume shrugged "I think it went well, my Bond increased by four."

"Impressive, you might even hit one-hundred before I do." Rein commented.

The group went to sleep not much later.

* * *

"Ichigo and Ryuga, both of you are total morons." Tachikiru said, they had just gotten done with training their Bond.

"Where did that come from?" Ryuga asked.

"Both of you decided to completely eliminate Kido from your list of options in exchange for brute strength. Have you ever heard the saying that brains always beat brawn?" Tachikiru was nearly yelling.

"Well Kido isn't really my style so I decided to get the most out of my options." Ichigo shot back.

"I am sure you will regret that decision when you start seeing the insane things that the other players will be doing with Kido." Tachikiru warned "Regardless, everyone did a good job leveling today; we all hit level three and increased our Bond a bit."

Tachikiru went over the numbers again. He had hit 5/5/1/2/10/10/6 as well as increasing his Hoho skill by two ranks and his One-Handed; Sword skill by one. Ichigo had reached 10/2/1/10/5/4/3 while raising his Zanjutsu skill by two and his One-Handed; Sword skill by one. Ryuga had reached 8/3/2/10/4/5/5, raising his bond by an exceptional four. His Zanjutsu skill had increased twice and his One-Handed; Sword skill had increased once. Klein had hit 5/5/4/6/6/6/4 while raising both his Zanjutsu and Hoho by one rank.

In addition to stats Klein had also purchased a one handed curved sword at the end of the day. As far as he was concerned they had made fair progress today.

* * *

Amber, Asuna, and Saiden had also just finished their Bond leveling and were preparing to sleep. Amber had gotten her stats to 4/8/8/2/6/4/6 while raising her Zanjutsu and Kido by one rank each as well as increasing her One-Handed; Sword skill once. Asuna had reached 4/4/3/5/8/8/4 and raised her Zanjutsu and Kido by one. Her One-Handed; Sword had also increased by one. Saiden had reached 4/8/4/10/5/1/4 while increasing his Zanjutsu and Kido once each. His One-Handed; Sword skill had increased by one rank.

* * *

Kirito had spent most of the day leveling and doing quests at the same time. Instead of spending the night in the first town like the rest of the players he had decided to set up a slightly more permanent home in the second town. He had already rented a room for the next three days and had also accepted a fair number of quests from the area. Once he had handed all the quests in and spent some time increasing his Bond he looked over his stats. He was level five, with two-hundred HP and his stats were 5/7/5/5/7/5/8 His Zanjutsu had gone up by two ranks and his Hoho by one. In addition, his One-Handed; Sword skill had increased by two.

* * *

The next morning Rein sent messages to everyone he knew, telling them to meet him in the first town. He soon received a reply from Kirito saying that he wasn't going to go and Rein assured him it was fine. When everyone had arrived he spoke "Everyone here is level three now, and you all have some basic equipment. I think we are ready to tackle a Sub-Dungeon, there is one that I know of on the first floor, and I think I am the only Beta Tester to know about it because it had not been cleared even on the twenty-seventh day of the Beta. The path to the dungeon is fairly dangerous but I know a safer route. In order to clear this one we should form two parties and then group together."

"Why are we going to a dungeon? What is inside it besides monsters?" Amber asked.

"Well, there are a quite a few good weapon drops inside, and the experience you get in comparison with the difficulty is really good. If we manage to clear it we should all be around level ten, and that means we should be ready to take on the First Floor Labyrinth. In addition, during the Beta Test there was a strange multiplier on the experience while inside the dungeon, new skills are learned much earlier than you would normally expect, so it is a great way to unlock some of the Extra Skills and Additional Weapon Skills." Rein explained.

The rest of the group seemed to be in agreement so they formed their parties and headed off.

When they had arrived Rein spoke again, he pointed to a cave "This is the tricky part, the entrance is at the back of that cave, but fighting inside there is nearly impossible, in order to get past we have two options, either bind the monsters inside with Kido and kill them, or run past them. Who here has the best Kido stats?"

"That would be me and Saiden." Amber said.

"Alright, once we get in the two of you are going to each bind the same monster. Once we do that Ichigo, Ryuga, and Anima will attack that monster with everything they have, the rest of us will keep other monsters from entering the cave. Any questions?" Rein asked.

"Why Ichigo, Ryuga, and Anima?" Tsume asked.

"Because they should have the highest Zanjutsu abilities and we need to hit hard. Ryuga and Ichigo both disabled their Kido so they will be able to deal insane damage with their swords. Anima also has stats well suited to Zanjutsu so he will join in. Between the three of them we should be able to instantly kill each monster guarding the entrance." Rein answered. There were no more questions so the group took up their positions.

Amber and Saiden raised their hands in front of them, pointing at the closest monster "Bakudo number one, Sai." They said it in unison, and the monster soon contorted itself into an uncomfortable looking position.

Ichigo, Ryuga, and Anima all ran at the monster with their weapons drawn and slashed it straight down the middle, reducing its HP to zero. They repeated the process for the other three monsters inside the cramped cave and all proceeded down the staircase they were guarding.

Soon they had reached the bottom of the staircase and looked at the set of rocky tunnels around them, they branched out in four directions from the entry room.

"Which way do we go first Rein?" Senna asked.

"I don't know. The dungeons in the live game are different in layout than the Beta so I don't know which path is the best one to take. It doesn't matter though, our goal is to completely clear out this dungeon and get all the experience, money, and drops it has to offer us. Anyway, everyone check your skills and see if anything has been unlocked." Rein said, raising his hand and opening the menu.

Anima spoke first "I unlocked the Katana Extra Skill."

Klein was next "So did I."

"I unlocked the Two-Handed; Curved Sword skill." Ichigo said.

"And I unlocked the Two-Handed; Sword skill." Ryuga stated.

"I also unlocked the Two-Handed; Sword skill." Saiden said quietly.

"I unlocked the One-Handed; Rapier skill." Asuna informed.

"I unlocked something called Fist Weapons." Senna stated.

"I also unlocked the Katana Skill." Rein said "Did anyone else unlock anything?"

"It says I unlocked a skill called Dual Curved Daggers." Tsume said quietly.

(A/N: I know a lot of you just read that and basically said 'What the heck? Dual-wielding is Kirito's thing!' and you are right, dual wielding is his thing; this is an entirely different skill. Instead of being sad that someone other than him can dual-wield look forward to the abilities he will get in addition to dual-wielding, because they will be pretty cool.)

"So you can equip two Curved Daggers at once?" Rein asked.

Tsume nodded "That's what it says."

"Well, Curved Daggers are an exceptionally uncommon type of Dagger, in the Beta we only actually found two daggers that went into that category. Most of us thought the developers would simply eliminate the distinction but I guess they didn't. Luckily for you one of the two Curved Daggers I know about can be found on the First Floor."

"It's great that we got all these skills already, but we don't have any weapons to use with them." Tachikiru commented.

"Actually, I did a bit of questing last night. It seems most of the players weren't interested in quests that did not give stat rewards and skipped over them, so I took the liberty of completing a few. Since I had a feeling that we would unlock a load of weapon skills today I went ahead and bought a bunch of weapons to give to you guys." Rein said sheepishly.

"How did you know which types to get?" Amber asked.

"Intuition, and I just bought three of each kind of weapon to be sure." Rein replied. He opened his menu and sent trade requests to everyone who had unlocked a weapon skill. He gave a weapon called 'Katana' to Klein and Anima, also equipping one for himself.

Katana (Variable-Handed Katana)  
Edge: 2,3 (A/N: First number is Strength scaling, second is Dexterity scaling.)  
Mass: 100  
Heaviness: 50  
Weight: 100  
Durability: 90/90

Rein then gave a weapon called 'Claymore' to Saiden and Ryuga.

Claymore (Two-Handed Sword)  
Edge: 4,1  
Mass: 150  
Heaviness: 100  
Weight: 150  
Durability: 140/140

He then sent a 'Cleaver' to Ichigo.

Cleaver (Two-Handed Curved Sword)  
Edge: 3,2  
Mass: 120  
Heaviness: 90  
Weight: 120  
Durability: 130/130

Asuna got her 'Rapier' next.

Rapier (One-handed Rapier)  
Edge: 1,4  
Mass: 40  
Heaviness: 30  
Weight: 40  
Durability: 70/70

Rein then gave a 'Shortsword' to Amber and Tachikiru.

Shortsword (One-Handed Sword)  
Edge: 2.5,2.5  
Mass: 60  
Heaviness: 60  
Weight: 60  
Durability: 100/100

He turned to Senna "You are lucky, these were a reward from one of the quests I did." He gave a pair of 'Combat Gloves' to her.

Combat Gloves (Offensive hand armor)  
Edge: 3,2  
Mass: 5  
Heaviness: 1  
Weight: 5  
Durability: 120/120

And finally he handed a set of two 'Kukri' to Tsume.

Kukri (One-Handed Curved Dagger)  
Edge: 0,5  
Mass: 8  
Heaviness: 8  
Weight: 8  
Durability: 60/60

"Now we should be able to handle this dungeon, I guess we should start with the path to the left and see where it takes us; I will map out the paths we follow so we don't get lost." Rein stated and they headed down the path.

* * *

Words: 4,276

A/N: Leave a review and tell me what you think, let me know what you think of the stats being inside the story like they are, I am completely open to suggestions in that regard.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Here is chapter three, hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer1: I only own the boring kind of bleach…  
Disclaimer2: I don't own Sword Art Online…

Zanpakuto Art Online

Chapter 3

* * *

Rein, Anima, Tsume, Senna, Amber, Asuna, Saiden, Tachikiru, Ichigo, Klein, and Ryuga all progressed down the left path in the sub-dungeon they had just entered. Each of them had equipped the weapons Rein had given out earlier. So far there had been no monsters of any kind inside the dungeon and there had yet to come upon any rooms other than the one they had entered from.

"Rein, do you have any idea how far this goes on for?" Tachikiru asked.

Rein shook his head "I told you, they changed the layout of the dungeons when the game went live. All I know about this dungeon is that there are two types of basic enemies and one boss." He pointed ahead "I can sense a small bit of Reiatsu from up there, so there might be enemies, be ready everyone."

True to his word there were enemies ahead. There were three monsters blocking the hallway in front of them. They were large, slimy, lizards that stood at about waist height. Each of them was green with a singular red stripe starting between their eyes and ending at the tip of their tails. One of them began to charge at the group, there was a faint glow around it so it was clearly using a skill of some sort.

"Don't let it touch you, the glow means it is using a skill!" Rein shouted "My Reiatsu Sensing isn't very high yet, but I will get you what information I can."

As it got close Saiden raised a hand and pointed at it "Hado number one, Sho." He stated, the spell was successful and sent the monster flying backwards; it bounced twice on its back before skidding to a halt. When it had stopped it quickly righted itself and began to charge again, still glowing.

"It is called a Salamander. It has three skills, but I only can find one right now. It is called Charge, and it is a dashing attack that deals heavy blunt damage. It also takes doubled damage while it is charging. My Reiatsu Sensing is not high enough for me to tell you its weaknesses, resistances, or HP." Rein stated, drawing the Katana from his back.

"Alright then, who wants to take it on?" Tachikiru said, drawing his own sword.

"Allow me." Amber stepped forward. She stared down the Salamander as it charged at her "Bakudo number one, Sai." The monster seemed to trip as its legs were all forced together. Amber ran forward and executed a series of Sword Skills while the monster was unable to move. When she saw one of its legs twitch she jumped back "Rein, do you know if my attacks still counted as double damage when it was bound like that?"

"They did not, the Charge skill ended when you cast your Kido." Rein informed.

"Well this stinks; it must have a lot of HP." Amber said, jumping to the side to avoid another charge. While she was standing next to the Salamander it did something different, this time it swung its tail at her. Instead of dodging she parried the attack with her sword and dashed forward to execute another slash at its body.

"That attack it just used is called Swipe. It does medium slashing damage and has long range. It can be used often." Rein said.

Amber nodded her head and returned her attention to the fight, blocking another set of swipes from the Salamanders tail with her sword. After it had completed its attack she dashed in once again and began yet another flurry of attacks on the monsters head. As she neared the finishing blow of her combo she saw the monster draw its head back a bit and open its jaws, she wisely jumped away and the Salamanders teeth snapped together where she had just been standing.

"That attack was called Bite; it does high stabbing damage but has a relatively long windup and short range." Rein informed.

"How much of a beating can these things take?" Amber grumbled lunging at the Salamander yet again and beginning another flurry of attacks. This time she executed the finishing blow of her combo and finally killed the monster "Wow, these are pretty good rewards." Amber noted.

"That's why we're here." Rein said "For the next two we are going to need to have a plan, we cannot afford to take this long to fight off each one of these so we will need to group up."

"What sort of plan do you suggest?" Klein asked.

"I think it would be best to have one person focus on blocking its attacks while two others deal damage." Rein suggested.

"Sounds good, I will be one of the people who blocks." Klein volunteered.

Rein shook his head "No, let one of the Beta Testers do that, we have more experience with this sort of thing."

"Well Rein, you are proving pretty good with overall strategy so you should try to stay back a bit more, I don't mind doing the blocking, and Amber has already fought one so she should be able to block too." Tachikiru said.

Rein hesitated for a moment "Alright, good idea. When you two are ready go and start the fight on those two, Ichigo and Ryuga go with Tachikiru. Saiden and Anima should go with Amber."

Tachikiru was soon getting used to the Salamander's movements, expertly avoiding its attacks without even moving his feet, instead choosing to use Shunpo to reposition himself. While he was keeping the Salamander occupied Ichigo and Ryuga both raised their large weapons and each executed a three-hit-combo on their opponent, quickly finishing it off. Meanwhile, Amber was parrying each of the Salamander's attacks while Saiden was putting in a consistent flow of hard hitting strikes from his claymore and Anima was repeatedly cutting in to its body with his Katana. That Salamander soon met the same fate as its ally.

The group continued to move through the hallway, rotating who was dealing the damage to the Salamanders in order to more evenly distribute the experience, whenever they would come across a group of three Rein would also take part in blocking their attacks.

After an hour or so of fighting they came across a new enemy, it was almost identical to the Salamanders but instead had blue skin with an orange stripe. Rein spoke up "That enemy is called a Newt, they have two abilities. The Newts were not alone, they were up against a group of three Salamanders and two Newts "I am fairly sure that the Newts fill more of a rear line role, either supporting the Salamanders or dealing damage to us. We are going to do something a bit different this time; I want the three Testers to occupy the Salamanders as we usually do. Ryuga will go with Tachikiru, Ichigo goes with Amber, and Anima is with me. I want Tsume, Asuna, and Senna to go past the Salamanders and focus on the Newts. Saiden and Klein, you are on standby, I will tell you where to go if I need you."

"Why Tsume, Asuna, and Senna?" Klein asked.

"They are the three fastest of us that still are able to deal decent damage, Saiden is not particularly fast but very good with Kido so he should be on standby and be ready to cast a spell if we need him to. Klein you are very well rounded so it is best to have you on standby and we can have you fill in with any role we need you in." Rein explained calmly.

Everyone seemed to agree with his plan and they took their positions "Tsume, Asuna, and Senna, wait for us to engage the Salamanders before you go for the Newts, after you finish them off close in behind the Salamanders and help us with them. I will keep an eye on the Newts and let you know what their abilities do as they use them." Rein said, signaling for Amber, Tachikiru, and himself to start attacking the Salamanders. Once they had started their fights Ryuga, Ichigo, and Anima all moved in to assist them and Tsume, Asuna, and Senna dashed past them on their way to the Newts.

Tsume drew out both of her Kukri, and blocked a swipe from the Newt's tail. Rein shouted from behind them "That attack is called Swipe; it is exactly the same as the Salamanders' version but does significantly less damage."

She nodded her head and slashed the Newt across the face in an 'X' shape before using Shunpo to get behind it and cut at its rear legs, blocking the swipe from its tail that followed soon thereafter. Once she had finished her combo on her opponent the other Newt ran over to his ally and licked him on the back, Rein shouted to them once again "That ability is called Lick, it restores a massive amount of HP to the target." He paused "Anima, can you block the attacks from this Salamander for a moment, I need to think."

Anima nodded and took Rein's place. After a minute Rein spoke again "Ok, Saiden, stand between the Salamanders and the Newts, keep the Newts from healing the Salamanders with your Kido. Klein, I want you to go and assist Tsume, Asuna, and Senna. Your job is to keep the two Newts from healing each other. If we can do that successfully then this fight should be over quickly." Klein and Saiden nodded and did as he asked.

Rein stepped back in to the fight and began blocking while Anima attacked. Soon one of the Newts started running over to heal the Salamander "Hado number one, Sho." Saiden said calmly, pointing at the oncoming Newt. The Newt was knocked away back to where Tsume was fighting the other Newt. It started to move over in an attempt to heal its ally but was stopped when Klein jumped in front of it and slashed it across the face. Asuna quickly followed up with a quick series of jabs before Senna finished it off with a punch.

At around the same time Tsume raised her hand "Bakudo number one, Sai." The Newt she was fighting quickly contorted its limbs and tipped over. Tsume vanished from sight and reappeared on the other side of the Newt with both her kukri sheathed in electric blue energy. A moment later cuts appeared all over the Newt's body and it shattered into polygons. Tsume, Senna, and Asuna wasted no time, quickly running over to where the rest of the group was engaging the three Salamanders. With the combined efforts of the entire group they soon finished them off and began walking once again. Before long the group stood before a massive set of double doors.

"That is the Boss Room." Rein said "We should be fine taking it on, but before we do I want everyone to enter your Inner Worlds and speak to your Zanpakuto spirits, any bit of stats we can get will be important. Enter your Inner Worlds and come back as soon as you can, we don't have much time to spend. When you get out send me a copy of your current stats so I know your strengths and weaknesses when we fight the boss."

Everyone nodded and entered their Inner Worlds.

* * *

Rein was once again in his Inner World, standing in front of his Zanpakuto Spirit.

"It seems you are becoming quite a leader Rein." The Spirit commented.

Rein shrugged "I am just doing what I can do; right now I don't really have any massive strengths in actual combat other than my Kido so I am staying back and using my head along with my high Reiatsu Sensing to help them use their strengths to the fullest."

"Rein, you said you have no massive strengths in actual combat. Were you stronger in the Beta Test?" The Spirit asked.

"Yes I was." Rein answered.

"Then it is my fault, I am the one holding you back." The Spirit said sadly.

"No, it isn't your fault your memories were blocked, I have some patience, I can wait for you to catch up." Rein said "Really sorry to cut this short, but I don't want any monsters spawning and killing us all."

"I understand." The Spirit said, seeming to cheer up a bit.

Rein closed his eyes and left his Inner World.

* * *

Rein was surprised to see that he was the last one to leave his Inner World. He opened his menu and saw that he had ten messages, he went through them quickly.

Everyone in the group was level seven, giving them two-hundred-fifty HP each. His own stats were now 4/11/11/2/3/3/16 and his Zanjutsu had increased to four, along with his Kido increasing to two. His Katana skill had already increased to three. This made his main strength his Kido and Zanjutsu, with his Hoho being acceptable.

He looked at Anima's stats, which were 4/4/3/11/11/3/6 along with five Zanjutsu and two Hoho. His Katana skill had also reached three. This gave him very high Zanjutsu and medium level Hoho and Kido.

Senna had progressed to 5/7/4/6/7/7/6 and her Hakuda had reached four, her Hoho reached two, and her Kido reached three along with her Fist Weapons having already progressed to four. Her main strengths were Hakuda, Kido, and Hoho.

Tsume has reached 6/8/6/4/6/6/10 along with four Zanjutsu, two Hoho, and two Kido. In addition her Dual Curved Daggers had progressed to five and so had her One-Handed; Curved Dagger skill. Her Zanjutsu was close to Anima's and she also had strong Hoho and Kido but Rein was most surprised at her Bond, which had been increasing extremely rapidly.

Amber had obtained stats of 6/8/8/3/6/5/10. Her Zanjutsu had progressed to four, her Hoho two, her Kido three, and her One-Handed; Sword skill had reached six. She had very good Zanjutsu and Kido as well as passable Hoho.

He checked Asuna's stats, which were 4/4/3/5/10/10/8. Her Zanjutsu had reached four along with her Hoho and her One-Handed; Rapier skill. Her two biggest strengths were Zanjutsu and Hoho.

Rein looked at Saiden's stats next; they were 7/10/4/10/6/1/6. His Zanjutsu, Kido, and Two-Handed; Sword skills had all reached four. He took note that Saiden had an insanely high Kido skill as well as very good Zanjutsu but downright terrible Hoho. Since Saiden had reached four in Kido skill he would also be able to access some new spells, which would be very useful in the coming fight.

Ichigo had reached 10/2/1/12/6/5/6 with five Zanjutsu, two Hoho, and four in Two-Handed; Curved Sword. His main strength was his Zanjutsu which was exceptional and his Hoho was not too bad either.

Klein had progressed to 6/6/4/7/7/6/7. His Zanjutsu was now four, his Hoho three, his Kido two, and his Katana skill had reached five. He had a very good balance of Zanjutsu, Hoho, and Kido but was lacking in Hakuda.

Ryuga had obtained stats of 8/3/2/12/6/5/8 along with six Zanjutsu, two Hakuda, and five in Two-Handed; Sword. He had passable Hoho and an insane level of Zanjutsu.

Finally, Tachikiru had reached 6/6/1/2/11/11/9 with three Zanjutsu, six Hoho, and five in One-Handed; Sword. He had utterly ridiculous Hoho but low Hakuda and Kido; his Zanjutsu was decent at best.

"Alright, it will be hard for me to come up with a strategy until we actually see the Boss, so the moment we enter the room everyone just be defensive while I analyze the situation." Rein said before walking up to the massive door and pushing it open.

The Boss Room was a massive circular arena with a grid of thick pillars that would provide cover for both them and their opponents. In the center of the room there was a large dip in the ground, the floor within the dip was composed of glass and light flowed in from below. It must have been a sort of window on the bottom of the floating castle. What really caught their eye was the creature standing over the window. It was a massive chameleon looking beast that was approximately three times the height of the player, its skin was light green and there were no other markings. There was a large plate of armor on the front of its face and on the tip of its tail. It slowly began walking in the direction of the players, dragging its massive tail behind it.

"That is the Boss, it is called Rogue Chameleon and it has six abilities." Rein shouted "I want Tachikiru to lead Ichigo, Ryuga, and Anima in blocking its attacks. Everyone else standby for orders while we feel out its attacks."

Tachikiru, Ryuga, Ichigo, and Anima moved into position in the front of the group. Once they were there the Boss coated itself in a faint glow and began dashing at them. Rein spoke once again "That called Charge, it is the same as the Salamanders but it does a lot more damage. Like the Salamanders it takes double damage while charging."

Ryuga lifted his sword above his head and brought it down just as the Boss was about to reach him, his blade connected with the armor on the beast's face, a small shockwave echoed out from where the two attacks met. Rogue Chameleon wasted no time, swinging its massive, armored tail around to smash Ryuga. Tachikiru and Ichigo both jumped in front of it, managing to stop the tail with their blades.

"That attack is Swipe, once again it is the same as the Salamanders but it deals much more damage." Rein informed "This should be enough to develop a plan; I want Saiden to focus on using Kido to attack the Boss. Tsume, Senna, and Asuna you go behind it and focus on dealing damage as well. Klein and Anima go with them and block attacks from the tail. Amber and I will be on standby until we are needed." The group hurried to carry out Rein's strategy.

"Hado number four, Byakurai." Saiden said, firing a bolt of lightning at the Rogue Chameleon, and causing it to flinch a bit. Tsume took the opportunity to get in closer and execute an eight-hit-combo with her two kukris and then jumped away when the Boss began to turn in her direction.

"I will get its attention again." Tachikiru said, vanishing with a burst of Shunpo. He appeared all around the Boss very quickly, making light attacks before it could react. The beast let out a deafening roar before it slowly disappeared.

"This is one of its abilities, it is called Color Change. The Boss becomes invisible for an indefinite time but becomes visible when it attacks. With ten or higher Reiatsu Sensing you can determine its location, so I will warn you if it comes close. It also summons four Newts and eight Salamanders." He paused to think "Tsume and Asuna go and attack one of the Newts, stick together and take them down as quickly as you can. Everyone else focus on attacking the Salamanders, they don't pose much of a threat to us anymore after we leveled up so much but they still do damage. If I tell you to move do it quickly." Once again the group followed his instructions and took positions, quickly dealing with the Boss's minions.

"Saiden, dodge now!" Rein yelled, but it was too late. The Rogue Chameleon appeared with its mouth open, its tongue shot out of its mouth and smashed into Saiden's back, knocking him to the ground. Rein gave more instructions "Everyone form a circle around him, don't let the Boss get close. That attack is called Tongue Shot, it has very long range and fast travel time; it deals almost no damage but if it connects it causes paralysis. Don't let it hit anyone else."

The group took their usual formation, with Rein and Amber staying back to guard Saiden. The Boss was unable to do much of anything at this point, with the entire group extremely determined to take it down. Ryuga and Ichigo were actually managing to land very heavy attacks on the Boss between blocking and it was not long before it became invisible once again. The group switched to their second formation, quickly dealing with the minions and waiting for the Boss to show itself once again.

"Hado number one, Sho." Rein said, casting the spell and managing to intercept the Boss's tongue before it hit anyone. The Boss turned invisible eight more times but never managed to land a hit on anyone else.

"Rein, you should take the last hit, you have earned it." Amber said.

"Are you sure?" Rein asked.

Tachikiru shouted back "Just finish this thing off before it injures anyone else! We can't exactly see its HP but judging by its massive change in movements it is nearly defeated."

"Alright then." Rein said calmly, standing in front of the Boss and holding his Katana in both hands out in front of him. He ran at the Chameleon and jumped into the air, thrusting the sword out in front of him and stabbing it into the top of the Boss's head. Rein left the blade in the Boss and jumped into the air "Hado number one, Sho." He sent the spell at the hilt of his Katana, forcing it to launch cleanly through the beast's head and embed itself in the floor below. Soon thereafter the Boss shattered into polygons and messages appeared in front of each player. Once it had been defeated Saiden also stood up, the paralysis having worn off.

"Um, how are we going to distribute loot?" Ryuga asked, looking at Rein.

"I don't know, how about we all say everything that we got and then sort it out." He suggested "I received a Chameleon Shroud, which is a mouth armor piece, for the last hit bonus as well as a Chameleon Fang curved dagger, a Chameleon Horn Two-Handed Curved Sword, a bunch of Chameleon Teeth throwing weapons, an assortment of crafting materials, and a set of crafting blueprints."

"I am pretty sure all of us got a bunch of crafting materials and Chameleon Teeth, so to save time just skip those." Amber said.

Anima spoke next "I received a Chameleon Claw katana and a Chameleon Fang."

"I received a Chameleon Claw, a Chameleon Fang, and a Chameleon Crest shoulder armor." Tsume stated.

Amber spoke "I got a Chameleon Claw."

"Same here." Asuna said.

"Same for me too." Senna informed.

"I didn't get anything other than the teeth and crafting materials, most likely because I was knocked out of the fight." Saiden said.

Ryuga was next "I also got a Chameleon Claw."

"Me too." Tachikiru said.

"So did I." Klein stated.

"I got a Chameleon Fang." Ichigo finished.

"Alright, so my first question is which of us would like to be responsible for crafting." Rein said.

"I can do it, it sounds like fun." Saiden volunteered, showing a bit more emotion than was usual.

"Sounds good to me, we should all give the crafting materials to him. I will also give him the blueprints." Rein suggested "The total for items we got is four Chameleon Fangs, eight Chameleon Claws, one Chameleon Shroud, one Chameleon Crest, and one Chameleon Horn. I would say that each of the katana users should get two of the Chameleon Claws and we can save the other two if anyone else wants to use a katana. Tsume should probably get all four Chameleon Fangs so she had a set of backups as well. The Chameleon Horn will go to Ichigo, since he is the only Two-Handed Curved Sword user here. As for the Chameleon Crest, I would say we give it to Saiden, since his weakness is speed he is most likely to take a hit and would get the most use out of the armor. Based on the stats on the Chameleon Shroud I would give it to Tsume. It does not give any resists and has nearly zero weight; the only thing it does is give a large boost to your Hiding skill and conceals your Reiatsu significantly. Are there any objections?"

Everyone in the group seemed fine with the loot distribution so they did not speak up and the loot was distributed as Rein had suggested. Soon the group had all equipped their various equipment.

Rein, Klein, and Anima had all equipped one 'Chameleon Claw', it looked like any other katana but was slightly longer, had a circular guard, and green hilt wrappings.

Chameleon Claw (Variable-Handed Katana)  
Edge: 3,4  
Mass: 100  
Heaviness: 50  
Weight: 100  
Durability: 120/120

Ichigo had equipped the 'Chameleon Horn', which looked like a massive katana with a thick blade, easily the same height as him. It had a rectangular guard and green hilt wrappings.

Chameleon Horn (Two-Handed Curved Sword)  
Edge: 4,3  
Mass: 125  
Heaviness: 95  
Weight: 125  
Durability: 160/160

Tsume had equipped a pair of 'Chameleon Fang' which looked like a significantly smaller version of the Chameleon Claw. The hilt was only long enough to fit one hand and the blade was approximately thirty centimeters in length.

Chameleon Fang (One-Handed Curved Dagger)  
Edge: 0,8  
Mass: 5  
Heaviness: 5  
Weight: 5  
Durability: 100/100

She had also equipped the 'Chameleon Shroud' which gave no actual stat bonuses but concealed her presence. It looked like a simple piece of cloth that was wrapped around her face, covering her nose. It was the same color as her hair.

Saiden equipped the 'Chameleon Crest' on his right shoulder. It was a smooth piece of bone that ended in a rounded spike extending off his shoulder.

Chameleon Crest (Shoulder Armor)  
Heaviness: 10  
Weight: 30  
Physical Resist: 10 (10/10/10) (A/N: Ten base physical resist, the other three are Stab/Slash/Blunt resist)  
Magical Resist: 10  
Elemental Resist: 10 (+10 of last type of elemental damage taken)  
De-buff Resist: 1  
Durability: 200/200

"What are we going to do now?" Klein asked.

"We are very close to the third town right now, so I suggest we all go there for the night. Tomorrow we can investigate the other three paths at the start. Since the one on the left had the Boss the other ones likely have loot rooms at the end." Rein said and everyone followed him out of the dungeon.

* * *

Words: 4,392

A/N: Let me know what you think of how I did the dungeon, this was mostly a trial run for the major dungeons in the game so tell me if there are any issues or they will keep popping up throughout the story. Other than that I hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Sorry for the really long delay between updates, my computer is quite literally dying as I type and it tends to bluescreen whenever it is most inconvenient for me. I also have two other stories I am working on right now, so I need to split my time up between them. Feel free to check them out, all of my OCs in this story are from them. In order to make up for the long wait I decided to let this chapter be a bit longer than average, hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer1: I only own the boring kind of bleach…  
Disclaimer2: I don't own Sword Art Online…

Zanpakuto Art Online

Chapter 4

* * *

Rein, Senna, Tsume, Anima, Klein, Ichigo, Ryuga, Amber, Tachikiru, Saiden, and Asuna all had just finished clearing out the rest of the dungeon they had been in yesterday. True to Rein's predictions the other three paths at the beginning all led to various loot rooms full of crafting supplies and a few weapons. As is typical of any RPG the weapons found in the dungeon were vastly inferior to the weapons that were dropped by the boss, and they had also not found anything to replace the starting weapons that Ryuga, Amber, Tachikiru, Saiden, and Asuna were still using.

Rein let out a sigh "Looks like we will have to craft you guys some new weapons. I will show Saiden the basics once we get back."

The group began walking out of the dungeon, which was now completely clear of monsters. On their way out Rein opened up his menu and began sorting through his items. When he was done he sent a message to Kirito asking him what sort of weapon he was using. He knew that the message would not actually send until he left the dungeon, but he had nothing better to do while he was walking to the exit.

* * *

Soon the group was walking through the third town. Rein spoke as he led them "We really can't afford to buy our own crafting area yet, and even if we could I don't think we would want it to be on the first floor. For now we will just use the public ones." When he finished speaking they were inside a large building that was essentially half a sphere with a few doors on it. There was crafting equipment scattered all throughout the building wherever there was room and there were a few NPCs near the entrances.

Rein walked up to one of the NPCs and bought a few items that he gave to Saiden. He then motioned for everyone else to follow him as he headed over to a set of the crafting equipment.

"Ok Saiden, take the blueprints you got from the boss and use them on the equipment." Rein instructed. After Saiden had done that he spoke again "Now you should see two folders in the menu, one is the base crafting blueprints that everyone starts with and the other should be the set from the boss, I would guess it is called something like 'Chameleon items'."

"Yeah, there are a lot of blueprints inside the second folder." Saiden informed.

"Alright, to make things easier I would recommend sorting them in somehow, first off hide everything that you aren't able to make yet and then sort it by the type of item." Rein continued.

"Right now there is nothing I can craft from those blueprints." Saiden stated, looking disappointed.

"Don't worry about that, I just wanted to see if there was anything. For now go back to the first folder and find the category for cloaks." Rein instructed "Send me a message with the materials you need to make them."

"Why cloaks?" Saiden asked.

"There are a few reasons, first they are fairly quick to craft and give pretty good experience so they are great for getting through the first few crafting levels. The second reason is that cloaks are generally fairly important, they give you the ability to hide the items you have equipped from other players." Rein explained.

"Why would we want to hide our items?" Senna asked.

Rein frowned "In the Beta there were plenty of players that would kill you and take your items if they looked good. Now that death in the game translates to death in reality I would hope that the number of Player Killers goes down, but it would be too much to ask for them to disappear completely. The fact that all of us have fairly unique looking weapons right now could make us appealing targets and while I doubt that there are many players actually able to beat us it is always better to be on the safe side."

"You think people actually will kill each other in the game? That is the same thing as murder!" Asuna seemed outraged.

"Believe me, I would love to think that it isn't going to happen, but murder happens in the real world too. I just don't want to take any chances." Rein replied. He saw that Saiden had sent him the list of materials that he needed and headed over to another NPC to buy them. He soon walked back and handed the materials to Saiden, who crafted a set of eleven cloaks, one for each of them.

"My crafting increased to eight now." Saiden informed.

"Good, eventually the crafting skill splits off into more specific skills like blacksmithing but for now the crafting skill is all you need." Rein explained "Go back to the folder for the boss blueprints and see if you can make anything."

"I can craft all of the weapons we got from the boss except for the Chameleon Horn, as well as a few new weapons." Saiden said "There is a Rapier, a One-Handed Sword, a Two-Handed Sword, and a Spear. We need one Rapier, two One-Handed Swords, and two Two-Handed Swords right?"

Rein nodded "If you have the materials you should try to make a spare of each weapon, it is always good to have a backup. Also, make two extra One-Handed Swords."

"Ok." Saiden said and he went to work.

* * *

About half-an-hour later Saiden had finished crafting the weapons they needed. He walked over to Amber and Tachikiru first and gave each of them two Chameleon Edge, which was a slightly longer than average one handed sword with a plain looking blade and green wrappings around the hilt.

Chameleon Edge (One-Handed Sword)  
Edge: 4,4  
Mass: 70  
Heaviness: 60  
Weight: 70  
Durability: 150/150

Saiden then gave Asuna a Chameleon Needle, which was a Rapier of similar dimensions to the Chameleon Edge but with a much thinner blade and a more pronounced guard.

Chameleon Needle (One-Handed Rapier)  
Edge: 2,6  
Mass: 50  
Heaviness: 40  
Weight: 50  
Durability: 120/120

And finally Saiden gave himself and Ryuga each a Chameleon Claymore, which essentially was a larger version of the Chameleon Edge.

Chameleon Claymore (Two-Handed Sword)  
Edge: 6,2  
Mass: 160  
Heaviness: 100  
Weight: 160  
Durability: 200/200

Rein spoke after they had all equipped their items "That is enough for today, we could all use some rest."

The rest of the group seemed to be in agreement so they headed back to their rooms.

* * *

After everyone had fallen asleep Rein stepped out of the room he was sharing with Tsume and Anima into the main room. He noticed that Senna seemed to have fallen asleep on the couch in the main room and quietly walked passed her to the door. He opened up the door and began to step outside.

"Rein, where are you going?" He heard a tired voice ask from the room and he turned around. Senna had sat up and was rubbing her eyes.

He sighed "I was going to head out and grind out some money. I used up most of mine today buying materials for Saiden."

"Oh, alright; mind if I come with you?" Senna asked, standing up.

Rein thought for a moment "If you want to you can come, I was going to go to a fairly high level area."

"Sounds fine to me, I don't think I have ever actually seen you fight since you always stay in the back giving directions." Senna opened her menu and equipped her cloak along with her armored gloves. Rein sent her a party invite, which she accepted, and they headed outside.

"So why are we going to a higher level place?" Senna asked after they had gone a fair distance.

"We are pretty far ahead of the leveling curve for most players right now; if we were to go back to lower leveled areas it would make leveling harder for everyone else." Rein explained.

"And why did you wait until this late to leave?" Senna questioned.

"Mostly because these are higher leveled areas. The only people using them right now will likely be much stronger than I am and I would prefer to avoid running into them." Rein replied "I doubt anyone else will be leveling this late."

Senna nodded "That makes sense, one last question; how do you plan on beating monsters that are stronger than you are?"

"They aren't really stronger than I am; my Bond is really high for my level right now so I am more than capable of killing them as long as I don't make any mistakes." Rein answered.

By then they had arrived at their destination, a very large dip in the ground filled with a large number of wolf-like monsters. Rein didn't waste any time, drawing his weapon and pointing his finger at one of the monsters "Hado number one, Sho." A pulse of energy shot from his finger and collided with the monster's head, sending it skidding back a few meters. The monster jumped off the ground and ran at Rein at full speed. In response Rein moved his right hand to the hilt of his Katana and turned his body to the left, holding the blade horizontally across his face with the tip pointing at the oncoming monster. As the wolf got closer Rein brought the blade forward and slashed at the monsters face before using Shunpo to create more distance. Once again the monster charged at him and swung one of its clawed paws at him. Rein brought his blade up to block the attack before taking his right hand off the hilt and placing it against the head of the monster "Hado number four, Byakurai." A bolt of blue energy fired straight through its head and its body shattered into polygons.

Before Rein had a chance to move on to the next monster he sensed someone approaching their position. His Reiatsu Sensing was not high enough for him to determine anything other than the fact that they were a player. Rein turned to Senna "Someone is coming, let's move away from the monsters a bit so we have some room."

Senna nodded in agreement "Who is it?"

"I have no idea." Rein replied, turning to face the direction the unknown person was coming from.

Not much later a dark shape appeared over the crest of a hill about ten meters away from them, whoever it was seemed to notice their presence and walked in their direction. Once it had closed half the distance it spoke "Out for some late night farming?"

Rein frowned; he had heard that voice before. Eventually it hit him "Kirito?"

"Rein?" The figure replied, walking closer to them. Soon he was close enough for Rein to see his face, it was indeed Kirito.

"Yeah, it's me." Rein said, closing the rest of the distance.

"What have you guys been up to? I haven't seen you anywhere." Kirito asked.

"We just finished clearing a dungeon I found in the Beta." Rein answered "Here, these are for you." Rein opened a trading window and placed the two extra one-handed swords Saiden had crafted earlier in it "I'm not sure what sort of stats you have on the weapon you are using right now, but it can't hurt to have some backups regardless."

Kirito went through his menus for a moment before equipping one of the Chameleon Edge "The stats on this are actually really good, I probably will not be able to get anything better until the third floor." He paused for a moment "I'm not sure what level you guys are up to, but tomorrow afternoon there is going to be a meeting about clearing the first floor's boss."

Rein looked surprised "Isn't it a bit too early to be doing that?"

"I think so too, but if they are going to make an attempt I want to be there to help, it isn't going to be impossible to clear the boss, just much harder than it needs to be." Kirito replied.

Rein thought for a moment "I think we are high enough levels to attempt the boss now. I will go to the meeting and anyone who wants to come with me is more than welcome."

Kirito glanced at Senna before looking at Rein "Are you going to work towards that again?"

Rein laughed "No need for secrets Kirito, yes I am working on my Bond as much as I can."

"What are you up to now?" Kirito asked.

"My Bond is twenty-three right now, I'm not too sure how much longer it will take until I reach one-hundred; the first fifty levels tend to go really fast and then the rest of it takes a while." Rein answered.

"Thanks for the weapon, I guess I will see you tomorrow; good luck with the farming." Kirito said, walking into the group of monsters and beginning to kill them.

"I wish he would save some for the rest of us." Rein muttered under his breath.

Senna giggled "That's what you get for giving him a good weapon to work with."

Rein just sighed "I guess you're right. Come on, let's go do some farming. This time you can help me fight them if you want."

"Sounds fun." Senna stated cheerfully, following Rein over to another group of the wolf-like monsters.

* * *

Rein and Senna returned from their farming trip about three hours after they had left and immediately went to sleep. When they woke up in the morning Rein gathered everyone in the main room.

"I have some big news guys; we are going to challenge the boss of the first floor soon." Rein announced.

Amber looked worried "There is no way we will be able to beat it yet."

"Not just us." Rein explained "Kirito said that a large number of the highest level players are holding a meeting for it this afternoon and he asked me to come. Obviously I will not force any of you to go, but all of you are welcome to come if you want to."

Tachikiru spoke "It can't hurt to go to the meeting, we can decide if it is possible to beat the boss then."

Rein nodded in agreement "This morning I want all of you to focus on leveling up your Bond, we will leave in two hours. When you finish leveling your Bond send me a copy of your stats." With that Rein took a seat on one of the couches and entered his Inner World.

* * *

Rein stood upon the white sands of his Inner World once again, in front of him stood his Zanpakuto Spirit.

He walked over to the figure wreathed in blue flames "Hey."

The spirit turned around "Hello Rein. Everything is going fine I assume?"

Rein nodded "Yes, so far nothing bad has happened. I wish we didn't have to go after the first floor boss so early but it isn't too far out of our reach."

"Remember, the highest level players are likely the ones that want to get out of here the most. It should be no surprise that they are eager to make some progress." The spirit reasoned.

"True, but that same eagerness could easily get them all killed, they need to remember that rushing in and getting themselves killed goes directly against their desire to escape from this game." Rein replied.

"Tell that to them, not me." The spirit smirked "I think they will be fine if they just follow your instructions in the boss fight, you have exceptionally good intuition on how to handle enemies."

"It's because I used to mess around with AI programming myself, I know how they tend to work." Rein stated.

The spirit sighed "We both know that there is more to it than just that, stop underrating yourself."

Rein frowned but remained silent, deep in thought.

"Hate to interrupt your thoughts, but you are likely to be late for the meeting if you stay here much longer." The spirit said after a few moments.

"You're right, thanks." Rein said before he left his Inner World.

* * *

Rein opened his eyes, looking around the main room of the building his group was currently staying in to see that everyone else seemed to have finished speaking with their Zanpakuto Spirits and were all looking at him eagerly. He quickly checked his menu, noting that everyone had sent him messages with their stats.

"Ok, let's head out now. I will check over your stats as we walk." Rein stated, standing up and equipping his weapon and cloak. The rest of the group did the same and they walked out the door and onto the streets.

(A/N: I am going to slightly change the format I am giving you the stats in to make life easier. It will now be Level/HP/Reiryoku/Reiatsu Control/Reiatsu Sensing/Muscle/Coordination/Speed/Bond and I will give a second set for the skills which will be Zanjutsu/Hakuda/Hoho/Kido/Whatever weapon skill they mainly use Also, for Ichigo and Ryuga, who chose to set their Kido to zero in exchange for a multiplier to Strength and Coordination I will put the raw values followed by the effective value in Parentheses (these things). Remember that the stats are only there for people who are interested, if the numbers are too annoying for you just skip over them as I will have whoever is reading over them give a summary of what their various strengths are. The only numbers that you really need to look at are Level and Bond. Starting now I will also put those two numbers in **bold** so they are easier to pick out. If you have any comments about how I am giving the information to you let me know, I am open to suggestions and believe me, I know that the amount of information I am giving you can get overwhelming since I am the one actually doing the calculations out. I have a ton of text documents and a few excel spreadsheets dedicated to keeping track of this stuff.)

Rein first looked over Amber's stats, which were **12**/385/8/8/8/4/7/6/**15,** her skills were 7/1/4/4/9. Her two greatest strengths were her Kido and her Hoho with her Zanjutsu also being relatively high.

Next was Anima, who was **12**/385/5/5/3/12/12/4/**12** and his skills were 11/1/3/1/7 making him have exceptionally high Zanjutsu and decent Hoho. His Kido and Hakuda were fairly lacking.

Asuna's stats were **12**/385/4/6/4/6/11/10/**13** and her skills were 8/1/5/3/10, giving her a good balance between her Zanjutsu and Hoho as well as having some proficiency in Kido.

Ichigo was **12**/385/12/3/1/12(18)/8(12)/5/**11**, his skills were 9/2/3/0/10 which gave him ridiculously high Zanjutsu and decent Hoho and Hakuda.

Klein's stats had reached **12**/385/6/8/4/8/9/6/**13** and his skills were at 8/2/4/2/10, making him one of the most well-rounded members of the group.

Ryuga's stats were **12**/385/10/4/2/13(19.5)/6(9)/6/**12** and his skills were 11/2/3/0/9. His Zanjutsu would be insanely strong, easily the highest in the group, and everything else about him was mediocre at best. Rein decided to have a talk with him about how min-maxing did not apply in Zanpakuto Art Online due to the way the stats interacted with each other. Because the final values used for combat calculations were determined from many skills multiplicatively it was more effective to work for balanced stats than focus in one area as the payoffs would be significantly higher.

Saiden had gotten to **12**/385/8/11/4/12/6/2/**11** and his skills were 6/1/1/8/9. Saiden had insanely high abilities with Kido while also possessing a very high Zanjutsu. His biggest weaknesses were his Hakuda and his Hoho.

Due to Senna coming with Rein to farm the previous night her level was slightly higher than everyone else's. Her stats were **14**/445/6/10/4/7/8/8/**12** and her skills were 1/11/4/4/10, Senna's Hakuda and Kido and Hoho were all fairly high and well balanced with her Zanjutsu being completely terrible. Luckily for her she didn't ever make use of a sword so it didn't matter that much.

Tachikiru's stats were **12**/385/7/6/2/3/12/12/**15** and his skills were 6/1/12/1/7. His Hoho was insanely high, making him most likely the fastest player in the game currently. His Zanjutsu was passable, but definitely not his strength. His Hakuda and Kido were both terrible.

Tsume's stats were fairly surprising to Rein, she was **12**/385/6/9/6/6/8/6/**17** and her skills were 9/1/4/4/11. Her Bond was actually the second highest of the group even though she was not in the Beta. Tsume's strengths lay in her Zanjutsu, Hoho, and Kido, which were all above average and since she never used Hakuda it really didn't matter that it was so low.

Finally Rein reviewed his own stats, since he had also been out farming last night his level was also slightly higher than the rest of the group. Rein's stats were **14**/445/6/12/12/3/6/4/**25** and his skills were 10/1/4/4/10. Due to his high Bond his Zanjutsu was stronger than expected; in addition his Kido was also relatively high but nowhere near the level of Saiden. Rein's Hoho was not bad, but it could be much better and his Hakuda was completely terrible.

As Rein closed his own stat window he was surprised to see another message had been sent to him, it was from Kirito. Rein opened the message and read it.

'Hey Rein, just wanted to say thanks again for the weapons you gave me, they are really nice. I figured that it would be useful for you to know my stats in order to come up with a plan for the boss so here they are: **15**/475/6/8/6/7/9/8/**16** my skills are 9/2/4/3/11. Hope that helps you out, see you later.'

Rein looked through the numbers again, Kirito had very high Zanjutsu and Hoho; his Kido was also fairly good. He was not that surprised, considering that Kirito was a solo player it made sense for his stats to be balanced in order to allow him to deal with whatever situations might come up. Rein quickly sent a reply to the message thanking Kirito for the information.

A few minutes after Rein had finished reading through the stats and formulating some basic plans they had arrived at the location of the meeting, which was essentially a semicircular amphitheater.

In the center of the area was a blue haired man who was standing up perfectly straight, clearly he was the one who had arranged this meeting. The man spoke up "To everyone who came, I thank you for responding to my invitation. My name is Diabel, and I like to think of myself as a knight."

One of the players in the crowd spoke up "Please, there is no class system in this game. Stop joking around!"

Diabel laughed "True enough, but I believe that what we think of ourselves is far more important than what the system thinks of us." He paused "If I call myself a knight then in my mind I am a knight. This doesn't just apply to me though, it applies to everyone here."

Another player spoke "Are you trying to tell us all of us can be knights? This meeting is clearly a joke."

Diabel sighed "Fine, I will get to the point then. I am sure all of you have seen the players who hide in the Starting City, just waiting for their death to come to them. They tell themselves that the game cannot be beaten, and that we will all die here. This is the truth, as long as you sit around telling yourself that the game cannot be beaten it really is impossible to beat; but, if you decide to say to yourself 'this game _can_ be beaten' then the game is beatable." Diabel stopped to let his words sink in "The number of people who responded to my invitation is far too low to go through the entire game; we need more people if we want to have any hope of escaping. I know that many of you think that it is far too early to attempt the first boss, and normally I would agree with you, but I take it upon myself as a knight to defeat this boss anyway, and show everyone that this game can be beaten. As long as I tell myself that it can be done, it _can_ be done. As long as I tell myself that I am a knight, I _am _a knight."

Rein smirked and began clapping, while Diabel had a bit too much flair in his speech, Rein had to admit that it was well thought out. The man in front of him was clearly a natural leader, someone perfect to lead the players out of this deathtrap of a game. Once Rein had begun clapping the rest of his group followed, and soon the entire crowd was clapping furiously.

Diabel continued once the applause had died down a bit "So before we get into discussing what our plan actually will be I want all of you to form into parties of six. The leader of each party should be the most tactically skilled member."

Rein looked over at his group, knowing that there were only eleven of them. They would have to take in someone else. Rein immediately looked through the crowd and spotted Kirito, who was also frantically looking around for a group. Rein caught his eye and beckoned him to come over.

"Need a party?" Rein asked when he had come over.

Kirito nodded "Yeah."

"Alright, with you that makes twelve people." Rein stated "The first group will be myself, Anima, Tsume, Senna, Klein, and Ichigo. The second group will be Kirito, Amber, Tachikiru, Asuna, Saiden, and Ryuga. The two leaders will be Kirito and me, any objections?"

"Why did you give one group three Beta Testers and the other just one?" Senna asked.

"Because Kirito is new to the group so he isn't used to fighting with us, I decided that in order to make things easier it would be best to give him two experienced members in his party." Rein explained.

"Everyone done partying up?" Diabel asked "Good, now I would like all of the party leaders t-"

"Hold up everyone." A voice called from over the edge of the area. An average height man stepped up and quickly made his way down to the center of the amphitheater "My name is Kibaou, and I have something I want to say." He paused, turning to the crowd "I know for a fact that there are at least a few of you who owe all of the players who have died an apology."

Diabel looked calm "I assume you are referring to the Beta Testers?"

"Who else could I be talking about?" Kibaou shouted boldly "As soon as this game started all you Beta Testers just left the rest of us normal players to die and took all the good quests and loot for yourselves." He pointed at the crowd "You should start your apology by handing over all of the items and money you have taken from us regular players or there is no way we would be able to trust you to fight alongside us." He folded his arms and closed his eyes "I myself would never even be caught dead fighting alongside one of yo-"

He was interrupted by a hard kick to the shin by Senna, who had used Shunpo to appear right in front of him "Would you shut up already? We got it, you are all angry because some Beta Tester refused to tell you all their secrets."

Kibaou stood up "Are you trying to say that I am a liar, that the Beta Testers didn't take all the good quests for themselves and leave the rest of us in the dust?"

Senna kicked him in the shin again "Of course not, I am sure that there were plenty of Beta Testers who did things like that." She glared down at him "My issue is that you just assume all of the Beta Testers are the same, that none of them even gave a shred of thought to helping out other players."

"Fine then, prove me wrong! Show me a Beta Tester that is willing to help out other players!" Kibaou seemed to have given up on standing and instead shouted from where he lay on the grounds.

Senna froze; she wasn't sure if revealing Rein, Amber, and Tachikiru as Beta Testers would be a good idea right now since she had no idea what the rest of the crowd thought about it.

"Mind if I speak?" A deep voice called from behind her. She turned around and saw an insanely tall man stand up from the crowd and walk down to the center "My name is Agil." He held out a small book "I am sure each and every one of you has one of these, it is the guidebook that is being offered at all stores for free."

Kibaou stood up from the ground "Of course, what about it?"

Agil opened the book to the inside cover "If you read the first page you can see that the information inside this book was put together by a group of the Beta Testers. Based on that information will you still claim that all Beta Testers were as selfish as you described?"

Kibaou looked down "Fine, there were a few Beta Testers that didn't abandon the rest of us, but that doesn't excuse what the rest of them have done."

"I agree fully Kibaou, the Beta Testers that abandoned us certainly do owe us something, and here is my proposal for what they should do to make up for it." Agil paused "I believe that they can make up for abandoning us by helping us to clear the game. Regardless of their actions the fact remains that the Beta Testers are highly experienced and have a significant edge over the rest of us. They are our best hope for getting past these first few floors, so instead of trying to alienate them we should embrace that experience and allow them to use the items and money they have gathered to assist us." He looked at Kibaou "Unless, of course, you think that you can make better use of those items and money on your own."

Kibaou stuttered a few times and Agil spoke again "How about we sit down and let Diabel finish what he was saying, he went through all the effort of gathering all of us here so it is only fair to listen to what he has to say."

Senna quickly Shunpo-ed back up to sit down next to Rein and Agil and Kibaou both took seats near the bottom of the amphitheater.

Diabel spoke up again "Alright, I will continue now if that is alright with everyone." The crowd nodded in unison and he continued "I want all of the party leaders to come down here with me so we can discuss strategy, there are too many people here to have a full out open discussion so each of the party leaders will represent their own parties."

Rein and Kirito both stood up and walked down to the center of the amphitheater. Amongst the crowd Kibaou and Agil stood up and made their way to the center alongside them. Once all the party leaders had assembled Diabel began speaking "I will start off with describing where we are right now, to my knowledge nobody has entered the labyrinth yet, when we last scouted it out the field boss guarding the entrance was still alive."

Kirito spoke "Well obviously the first step is to clear the field boss; once we get inside we can develop strategies for the separate enemies and determine if we will actually be able to clear it."

Diabel nodded "Right, the field boss is a fairly large wolf-like monster with some armor on it. We haven't tried to fight it yet so we don't know its capabilities."

"Wouldn't it be a good idea to find a Sub-Dungeon to clear as a group to work on our teamwork?" Rein suggested.

"That would be a good idea, but all the Sub-Dungeons I know about have already been cleared." Diabel stated "Unless anyone else knows of one I don't think we really have the option to do a practice run."

"So when are we going to go after the field boss?" Kibaou asked eagerly.

"We can head over right now, I doubt it will be much of a challenge and it is as close to a practice run as we will ever get." Diabel replied.

"It's settled then, we will all meet up over there in two hours." Agil said and the rest of the party leaders agreed.

* * *

Around two hours later the five clearing parties had arrived at the location of the field boss. Rein looked over the area that they would be fighting in, which was an exceptionally narrow canyon. He turned to Diabel "Any more than six people fighting at once in there would be a horrible idea."

"Yeah, I didn't think it was this narrow." Diabel agreed "I guess we will send in one party to deal with it, any volunteers?"

"I'll go." Rein replied immediately, walking back to the assembled group of players "Tsume, Anima, Senna, Ichigo, and Klein come with me; we are going to take it out."

The members of Rein's party quickly stepped out from the group and followed him into the canyon with the rest of the clearers watching.

"Ok guys, that large armored wolf is our target. I am going to use some Kido to lure it over here, I want Ichigo and Anima blocking and the rest of us will be doing the damage. I will not be giving many instructions this battle so use your intuition."

"Why not?" Tsume asked.

"Because I don't want to undermine Diabel's authority or draw too much attention to us." Rein explained "Let's get moving." He pointed drew his Katana and raised his right index finger to point at the monster "Hado number four, Byakurai." A bolt of lightning fired from his finger and impacted the monster's armored head.

As the monster began charging at them Ichigo and Anima both stood in its path with their weapons drawn. They swung their blades in unison and when their attacks collided with the oncoming monster it was sent skidding back. The wolf got up fairly quickly, resuming its charge at Ichigo and Anima once again only to have all its attacks parried by the two expert swordsmen. While they were keeping it occupied Senna had used Shunpo to appear upside-down in the air right above the field boss and pulled her right fist back "Hado number four, Byakurai!" She fired the Kido at the moment her fist collided with the monsters hide, causing it to fall to the ground stunned by both the high amount of electricity poured into its body and the sheer force of Senna's punch. Next Rein and Klein had appeared on either side of the field boss and were both preparing to execute a two handed vertical slash to its exposed sides. Senna lightly leaped off the back of the monster and then pushed off one of Rein's shoulders before doing a few flips and landing gracefully on the ground. Rein shook his head and continued his attack. After they had attacked Tsume appeared right behind the monster with both her blades drawn. Each of her blades glowed with electric blue light and she let both knives tear into the soft flesh of the field boss. Before she could jump away the boss turned around and swiped at her with one of its clawed paws. In response Tsume ducked under the attack and slid underneath the wolf, bringing her two blades together and stabbing them into the monsters belly. She pulled her knives along with her as she slid across the ground and by the time she had reached the other side of her opponent it had already fragmented into polygons.

* * *

Words: 6,007

A/N: So I did make some changes to the speeches made by Diabel, Kibaou, and Agil, I mostly did it to reinforce their personalities and give the players a bit more to base their opinions of them on. Next chapter will be the first floor labyrinth and I am really excited to write it. Also, let me know what you think of the new way I am presenting stats and the story overall, I love to hear your opinions.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Pretty long chapter here, hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer1: I only own the boring kind of bleach…  
Disclaimer2: I don't own Sword Art Online.

Zanpakuto Art Online

Chapter 5

* * *

Tsume stood up from the ground, having just finished off the field boss that guarded the entrance to the first floor labyrinth. She quickly reached out in front of her and closed the loot window that had appeared; the rest of her party also closed their windows. Tsume sheathed both her blades and turned to face the rest of the clearers, most of whom were looking at her in awe. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around, seeing Rein.

"Good job Tsume, I will go talk with the other party leaders and find out what we will do next." Rein informed, walking past her. She watched as he walked up to the rest of the party leaders and began speaking to them.

After a few minutes Diabel spoke to the group "Ok everyone, we are going to head inside the dungeon for a moment, just to see what is actually in there. After we check it out we are done for the day, we will meet up here tomorrow morning."

With that the group of clearers walked towards the entrance to the dungeon at the end of the canyon. As they walked Tsume felt as though someone was staring at her but decided not to look in order to avoid causing any kind of conflict within the group, instead she just stuck closer to Senna and Ichigo, who were walking next to her.

When they entered the dungeon they were met with a large room that split off into ten paths. Diabel spoke to the group once again "Well that is it for today, tomorrow morning we will go over how to map an area and then we will begin exploring the dungeon. Good night everyone." He then turned and walked out of the dungeon with the rest of the clearers in tow.

* * *

After leaving the dungeon Rein, Kirito, and the rest of their group were walking back out the entrance of the canyon where they had defeated the Field Boss.

"So Rein, where are we going to stay for the night? The place we are currently staying is a bit too far from here." Klein asked.

"I agree, there is a town nearby that we can stay in. Kirito, I am not sure what you are doing but you can stick with us if you want to." Rein offered.

"Yeah, I guess I will do that." Kirito agreed "Anyway, was that a Unique Skill you used there Tsume?"

She nodded shyly "Yeah."

"I'm surprised you unlocked one so early in the game, in the Beta almost nobody unlocked more than one of them." Kirito noted.

"If I understand correctly Unique Skills are unlocked as you level Bond, at twenty-five, fifty, and seventy-five you are guaranteed to unlock some kind of Unique Skill. Sometimes you will unlock some additional Unique Skills at different Bond levels, and Tsume just happened to unlock one at five Bond." Rein explained.

Kirito paused to think "Yeah that matches up with what happened in the Beta." He looked over at Rein "Your Bond is over twenty-five, isn't it? What kind of Skill did you unlock?"

Rein smirked "Don't worry about it too much; it is really risky so I don't plan on using it unless I need to. I think you saw me use it a few times during the Beta anyway, Kirito."

"I am pretty sure I unlocked one as well." Senna said cheerfully.

"Really? What is it?" Amber asked curiously.

"It's called Saji; I used it against that Field Boss. Basically it allows me to use Kido to amplify my Hakuda." Senna stated proudly.

Tachikiru frowned "If that is the case you may want to un-equip your gloves."

"Why?" Senna asked.

"Gloves have a slight impact on how Kido discharges. For most people it doesn't matter because Kido is used at longer ranges anyway, but gloves essentially cause Kido to remain unstable for a bit longer than normal. Since you are quite literally shoving the Kido into them with a punch it would be best to make sure the spell is stable as soon as possible." Rein explained.

"But wouldn't I lose out on some of the damage I deal with punches?" Senna questioned.

"Yeah, but being able to make full use of your Unique Skill is more important. Wearing gloves while you use your Skill would be like Tsume only using one Curved Dagger when she can use two." Kirito stated.

"Alright." Senna agreed, opening her menu and un-equipping her gloves. Not much later they had arrived at their destination, Rein rented a place to stay for all of them.

* * *

The next morning they all met up with the other clearers in front of the entrance to the first floor Labyrinth.

"Good morning everyone." Diabel stepped in front of the crowd "Before we enter the dungeon I want to go over how to map a dungeon." He paused, waiting until he had everyone's attention "The idea is to proceed down your path and mark down every place where it branches off. The game handles the drawing of the map itself, so you don't need to worry about that. All you need to do is explore every single path you find and eventually you will have mapped the entire area."

One of the clearers spoke from the crowd "That will take forever; there were already ten paths at the entrance!"

"You're right; in order to get this done in a reasonable amount of time we will split up. There are ten paths and five parties, so each party is responsible for mapping out two of the paths. It is very likely that the paths will join with each other further into the dungeon. To keep ourselves from getting lost everyone should turn back the way they came exactly two hours after entering the dungeon, when we meet up we will combine our map data and then re-assign new areas to explore for each party based on what we still haven't mapped." Diabel explained "Are there any questions?" Nobody stepped forward so Diabel turned around and pushed open the door to the dungeon, leading the group inside.

Once they were inside Rein spoke "Who is going to explore each path?"

"It doesn't really matter too much, just try to make the two paths you explore adjacent to each other in order to save time." Diabel replied.

Kibaou moved over to the two leftmost paths, Agil to the next two, Diabel to the center pair of paths, Kirito to the next pair, and Rein took the rightmost paths.

"Remember; turn back exactly two hours from now so we don't get lost." Diabel warned before heading down his path with his party, the rest of the leaders followed suit.

* * *

It was not long before Rein, Senna, Anima, Tsume, Ichigo, and Klein ran into their first enemy, a red lizard like monster that stood on two legs at the same height as an average person and held an average sized battleaxe. They all looked expectantly at Rein for a strategy.

"Alright, that thing is called a Kobold Trooper. Since it is a humanoid monster it doesn't have a unique set of skills, instead it has variations of some Player Skills for its weapon. In this case it is using a battleaxe so expect fairly hard hitting attacks and lots of aggression." Rein paused for a moment "Anima and Ichigo you guys will block as usual; Tsume, Senna, Klein, and I will all focus on dealing damage to it."

The party took their positions, Ichigo and Anima expertly keeping the monster's attention while the rest of them quickly emptied its HP bar.

"That was really easy." Senna commented.

"It will get harder; usually the first monsters in a dungeon will be much weaker than the rest of the enemies and eventually work their way up in difficulty. I guess the developers didn't like the idea of a random player wandering into the wrong dungeon and getting one-hit with no warning." Rein explained, closing the rewards window "Come on, let's get going."

After nearly thirty minutes of running into more Kobold Troopers they ran into a new group of enemies.

Rein began to gather the information he needed "Alright, the one with the armor is called a Kobold Sentinel, it uses a mace. Expect its attacks to be slower than the Kobold Troopers but much stronger; due to the armor it has I am assuming they have significantly more health." Rein then pointed to the one without armor "The one with the tattoos on its body is called a Kobold Raider, they are more durable than the Kobold Troopers but not as much as the Sentinels. They use a curved sword and are likely to attack much faster and still do a fair amount of damage. These will be our priority targets as they pose the most significant threat; after we take out the Raiders we move on to the Sentinels and then finally dispatch the Troopers."

The party moved into their usual formation and proceeded to completely destroy the group of monsters with almost no effort. Rein was beginning to question if he was wrong about it being too early to attempt the first Labyrinth. He shook his head to clear his mind "Right, I doubt there will be anything harder than that ahead so let's keep moving. We have about an hour and a half until we turn back."

* * *

Kirito's party had passed through almost exactly the same groups of enemies that Rein's party had encountered with little to no difficulty. There was about fifteen minutes left before they were supposed to turn back and the group was just about to turn into the final pathway they hadn't explored yet. Barely a minute after turning the corner they had discovered a fairly large cavern, at the back was a set of stairs leading up to a massive door.

"We found it; that is the Boss Door." Kirito said happily.

The rest of his group seemed to be busy looking at something else "What is that thing?" Ryuga asked.

Kirito directed his gaze down to where the rest of his party was looking. There was a Kobold that was about two times the size of the other ones they had been fighting standing in a group of many smaller Kobolds. He frowned "That is a mini-boss, but I don't remember there being one here in the Beta. They must have changed it."

"What are we going to do about it? Should we get the rest of the clearers?" Amber asked.

"I think we can handle it fairly easily. You guys just take care of the smaller ones for me and I will deal with the mini-boss." Kirito instructed after a moment of thought. The group all drew their weapons and prepared to fight.

Saiden started off the fight by firing Byakurai into the head of one of the smaller Kobold, sending it skidding backwards into some of its allies. After the monsters had recovered they stood up and ran at the party of clearers. The mini-boss followed behind them at a significantly slower pace. Kirito used Shunpo to avoid the majority of the smaller monsters and prepared to attack the mini-boss. It was called a Kobold Captain and it made use of a massive hammer, meaning it would have devastating but slow attacks. Kirito held his sword out and waited for the Kobold to make its first attack, when it moved he Shunpo-ed around to its rear and let loose a series of Sword Skills before jumping away and preparing to repeat the process. After two more cycles of a dodge followed by a series of attacks the mini-boss seemed to learn that if it continued to be on the offensive there was no way it would win so it assumed a more defensive stance. In response Kirito leaped into the air and landed on the Kobold Captain's shoulder, slashing his sword through its neck as he landed. The mini-boss fell to the ground and shattered into pixels; turning around Kirito saw that the rest of his party had managed to finish off the other Kobold.

"Let's head back now, we are right on time." Kirito stated, leading them back along their path to the entrance.

* * *

After the dungeon had been fully mapped out the clearers met up once again at the entrance to the Labyrinth. The party leaders all sent their map data to each other and combined it.

"Good work, the dungeon is fully mapped now." Diabel informed "We also know the location of the Boss Room and judging by how little HP we lost I think it is safe to take it on today. Any objections?"

Agil spoke "I feel that it would be best if we all rested up before the fight, I don't think it is worth the risk."

"You're right, but the monsters will all re-spawn if we come back later. Instead we could all take a bit of time to level our Bond before we enter the Boss room, that should be sufficient time to rest up to our full capacity." Diabel compromised, Agil seemed satisfied so they all followed Diabel to the Boss Door.

* * *

The group sat down in front of the Boss Door, luckily everyone had already figured out how to level their Bond so no explanations were necessary. Rather than level his Bond any higher Rein decided to review the stats of both his and Kirito's groups.

His own stats were **18**/565/7/14/12/4/6/4/**29** and his skills were 13/1/5/7/14, making him well rounded in everything except Hakuda.

Senna, who was also two levels ahead, was at **18**/565/8/10/4/7/9/9/**18** and her skills had reached 1/14/6/6/4, since she was no longer making use of fist weapons the ten levels into that skill were mostly useless, now her primary combat skill was Saji. Rein was not entirely sure exactly how Saji scaled since it was a Unique Skill, but his best guess was that it was related to her Hakuda, Kido, and Bond because it was related to her Zanpakuto Spirit.

Anima was at **16**/505/6/6/3/13/13/4/**16** with skills of 15/1/4/2/14 which made his strength Zanjutsu with passable levels of Hoho and Kido.

Tsume was one level higher than the rest of the group because she had gotten the final blow on the Field Boss and also participated in more fights than any of the other party members. Her stats were **17**/535/6/10/6/7/10/7/**22** and her skills were 14/1/6/6/18 giving her high Zanjutsu and Hoho as well as good Kido.

Ichigo's stats were **16**/505/12/4/1/14(21)/8(12)/6/**14** and his skills were 13/3/4/0/16. His Zanjutsu was exceptionally high and everything else was average at best.

Klein had reached **16**/505/8/8/4/8/10/7/**17** with his skills at 12/2/4/4/13, making him a very well rounded member of the party as usual.

Rein then moved on to looking over the stats for Kirito's group. Kirito was at **19**/595/6/8/6/10/10/8/**20** and his skills were 14/2/4/4/16. His stats were fairly balanced but slightly tipped in favor of Zanjutsu.

Asuna's stats were **16**/505/5/6/4/6/14/10/**16** and her skills were 12/1/6/4/14, making her rather fast and also quite deadly with a sword.

Saiden had reached **16**/505/10/12/4/13/6/2/**14** with his skills at 8/2/2/12/12. Saiden's main strength lay in his downright insane Kido, his Zanjutsu was also very good if he did need to get into close combat. His greatest weakness was his Hoho.

Ryuga's stats were **16**/505/11/4/2/14(21)/8(12)/6/**15** and his skills were 16/2/4/0/16 making his Zanjutsu exceptionally strong and everything else rather bad.

Tachikiru was **16**/505/7/6/2/3/14/14/**19** and his skills were 10/1/16/1/12. As usual his Hoho was stupidly high, he was quite literally five times faster than everyone else in the group. His Hakuda and Kido were lacking quite a bit, but his Zanjutsu was just high enough to let him make effective use of his speed.

Finally, Amber's stats were **16**/505/9/8/8/5/8/7/**18** and her skills were 12/2/5/5, making her very well rounded like Klein.

Rein looked around at where the other clearers were resting, seeing some of them begin to open their eyes and get up Rein closed his menu and stood up.

After all of the clearers were ready Diabel began speaking to them "Before we enter the room I want to go over what we know about the boss. Its name is Illfang the Kobold Lord, it starts off using a large bone battleaxe and when it is down to the last of its four health bars it switches to a Talwar. The boss itself is very large; its attacks are fast and hard hitting. Our best bet is to have two parties dedicated to blocking the boss's attacks, one party dedicated to dealing with the minions it will spawn, and one party dedicated to dealing damage. The last party should provide support wherever needed." He paused "I want Agil's party and Kibaou's party to block its attacks, Kirito's party will take care of the minions it spawns, and Rein's party will be dealing the damage. My own party will be the support party."

Rein stepped forward "I would like to say a few things." Diabel nodded and Rein continued "Many of you are most likely used to doing something called Weapon Blocking, where you use your weapon to block an attack. You should avoid using that sort of skill against a boss like this one because it will greatly deplete the durability of your weapons. Everyone who is going to be blocking should be using a shield, as they have significantly higher durability and will not break after one or two attacks." He let the information sink in before speaking again "Remember, no sacrifice is worth beating this boss. If even one of us dies in this fight it will have been a wasted effort. Our goal is not to clear the game; it is to get out of the game alive. Don't forget that no matter what happens."

"Couldn't have said it better myself Rein." Diabel stated "I have one last thing to say, let's win." He turned around and pushed open the door to the Boss Room.

At first the room was dark and essentially colorless; Rein was unable to make out anything other than the vague shape of a few pillars. As Diabel's foot touched the floor of the Boss Room a ripple of light seemed to move across the surface, leaving light and color in its wake. As the ripple reached the other side of the room it flowed over a large, red, shape sitting on a grey throne. When the ripple reached its nose its eyes opened and it stood up, picking up a large axe and shield from beside the throne. It leaped off its throne, landing on the main floor of the room before bending forward and letting out a violent roar, as it roared a set of what appeared to be Kobold Sentinels stepped out from behind the pillars. The only difference between these Kobolds and the ones they had been fighting throughout the labyrinth was that these had the word 'Ruin' affixed to the beginning of their names and also had helmets on their heads. The smaller creatures took position next to the Boss and the group of monsters ran at the clearers.

All of the players reached to their various weapons and drew them in unison, creating a rather intimidating echo of metal on metal as they prepared for battle. Rein reached back and threw off his cloak, the rest of his and Kirito's parties did the same.

The two blocking parties took their position at the front of the group, preparing to take the first attacks. The Kobold Lord swung its massive axe down on the group, in response three of them brought their shields to bare, just barely managing to block the heavy attack, after the first attack was block the three involved switched with another three shield wielders and Kirito's party ran past them, making it over to the Boss's minions just in time to prevent them from forcing their way into the midst of the clearers and causing havoc. At the same time Rein's party charged at Illfang with their weapons glowing. Rein, Anima, and Klein executed four-hit, two-handed combos with their Katana, tearing into the virtual flesh of the colossus before them. Senna appeared behind the Boss using Shunpo and clenched one of her fists.

"Hado number four, Byakurai, Saji." She took her fist and planted it into the rear of the Boss, letting lose a massive explosion of light as the spell-infused punch lifted the monster a meter off the ground.

While the boss was still in the air Tsume leaped at it, both her blades glowing with electric blue energy as she initiated a twelve-hit combo on the Kobold Lord, pushing herself off its head when she finished. Ichigo appeared right behind her and held his blade edge down in front of him. Tsume flipped herself in midair and placed both her feet against the sword, launching herself back at the Boss. As she flew she held her blades parallel to each other, executing a powerful slash down the front of Illfang. At the same time Ichigo swung his own blade at the Kobold Lord's head, sending it reeling backwards. When they had both landed on the floor Tsume ran over to Ichigo and gave him a high-five.

A few seconds later the Boss regained its balance, letting out another violent roar and spinning its axe around its body. The blocking party just barely managed to get into position in time to deflect the attacked aimed at the damaging party. Rein and the rest of his group jumped back to where Diabel was standing by.

"Good work guys, we took down half of its first health bar with that." Diabel congratulated.

"Your Reiatsu Sensing is at twenty already?" Rein asked.

"Yeah, I decided that it would be the main stat I leveled up so I could lead the clearers." Diabel explained.

Rein nodded "Mine is only at twelve."

"Just leave the HP bar reading to me then." Diabel joked.

Meanwhile, Kirito and his party were dealing with the nearly endless flow of Ruin Kobold. Saiden stood in the center of the group, constantly chanting a series of words.

"How is that spell coming Saiden?" Kirito asked, flinging one of the Kobold away from him.

"Just give him time Kirito, don't break his focus." Amber said.

Kirito nodded, dashing over to the next Ruin Kobold and dispatching it with a quick series of slashes from his sword. Beside him Asuna was appearing in front of each Kobold and making a near instantaneous set of jabs with her rapier and disappearing before they could react. Ryuga was standing fairly close to Saiden and simply decimating any Kobold that came close with his devastatingly high Zanjutsu. Every Kobold he struck was killed with a single slash without exception. Amber had taken up a similar position defending Saiden from the steady supply of Kobold. While lacking the sheer brute strength that Ryuga had to offer she was significantly faster, taking out multiple Kobolds at once with a combination of Kido and slashes from her sword. Tachikiru seemed to be enjoying himself quite a bit, using his ridiculous speed to deal a constant flow of damage to every Kobold in the area with extremely long range dash attacks.

"I'm ready." Saiden said calmly, stabbing his sword into the ground in front of him and raising both hands out in front of him "Hado number twelve, Fushibi." A large web of orange energy materialized around them, he did not stop there "Bakudo number four, Hainawa." The web of orange energy turned yellow and entangled each of the Kobold, which all began struggling against the spell. "Bakudo number nine, Geki." Red energy appeared around each of the struggling Kobold, completely stopping their movement. Finally, Saiden pulled his sword from the ground and placed the blade against one of the yellow lines of energy "Hado number eleven, Tsuzuri Raiden." Lightning arced through the spell and passed through every Kobold, when it dissipated the Kobold all shattered into pixels and died.

"Nice work Saiden." Kirito said, walking over to him.

"Thanks." Saiden replied.

Back with the rest of the clearers the Boss was at its last health bar. Diabel spoke "Awesome work so far everyone. I will take it from here."

The Boss stopped attacking, tossing its axe to the side and dropping its shield. It reached back behind it and drew its second weapon.

Rein and Kirito both shouted in unison "Stop Diabel, get back as far as you can!"

Diabel never got the chance; the Boss had finished drawing its second weapon, a Nodachi, and leaped at Diabel, launching him upwards with a hard kick before following up with a sixteen-hit combo from the massive katana. Diabel was sent flying back, landing behind the group of clearers. Rein and Kirito ran over to him.

"Why did you go against the plan?" Kirito asked angrily.

"You were both Beta Testers right? You should know what I was after." Diabel said grimly.

"A last hit bonus item isn't worth your life." Rein replied sternly.

"Everyone wishes they were a Knight at some point in their life. This was mine." Diabel closed his eyes "Kill the Boss for me; don't let our efforts go to waste." Diabel then shattered into a mist of glimmering pixels.

Rein turned back to the group of clearers, who were all in shock at the death of their leader. Rein walked up to the Boss "Amber, Tachikiru, Kirito. Let's show this Boss what happens when you mess with Beta Testers." Amber, Tachikiru, and Kirito all came out from the crowd and stood behind Rein.

The Boss leaned down and glared at Rein, letting lose a roar. Rein simply stood there unfazed, holding his Katana in his left hand. The Kobold Lord brought its blade up above its head and swung down at Rein, who did not move at all "Hadan, Gata A." Rein brought his blade up and swung it at the Boss's sword. When the two attacks met there was a high pitched ring and the Boss's blade stopped in midair. "Hadan, Gata B." Rein gripped his Katana in both hands and put all of his strength into a single slash across the chest of the monster, knocking it backwards.

As the Boss reeled backwards Tachikiru seemed to appear in ten different places at once, continuously slicing at the Kobold Lord. Amber then appeared at the side of the monster, slicing into its leg and bringing it down to its knees. The Boss let out a roar of rage and agony, pulling itself across the ground using its free arm and its remaining leg. It reached Rein remarkably quickly considering its injury and once again brought its blade down on Rein, who easily parried the attack with the first form of Hadan and followed up with the second, knocking it away once again.

Kirito then dashed past Rein, gripping his sword tightly and mercilessly slashing repeatedly at the body of Illfang until it was dead.

Reward windows appeared in front of each of the clearers and a cheer erupted from the crowd as the word 'Congratulations' appeared in the air where the Boss had been defeated.

"Why?" A voice shouted from the crowd, silencing all of the clearers. They stepped to the side to reveal Kibaou "Why did you let Diabel die?"

"What are you talking about?" Agil asked, looking confused.

"The four of them are Beta Testers, they knew the Boss's attack patterns all along and still didn't tell any of us what was actually going to happen!" Kibaou shouted angrily.

"None of us had any idea what this Boss was going to do; we all thought that it was going to switch to a Talwar just like you did." Tachikiru informed calmly.

"Then how did you defeat it so easily?" Kibaou asked, his voice reeking of disbelief.

Kirito laughed "Because in the Beta both myself and Rein made it to floors well beyond this one. The ninth floor Boss made use of a Nodachi just like this one did and Rein and I both were present in that fight." Kirito paused "No, present doesn't quite cover what we did. The rest of the Beta Testers barely managed to take out a quarter of its first health bar before they died; Rein and I essentially took down the boss entirely on our own. It makes sense that we would have a bit of experience fighting monsters that use a Nodachi."

Kibaou looked to be in shock "That isn't even fair. You might as well be cheating!"

The crowd muttered a bit before someone shouted "A Beater, a Beta Tester and a Cheater!" The rest of the crowd began to use the new word as well.

"Beater, I like it." Kirito stated, turning around and pressing a button on his menu, equipping the last-hit bonus item he had received from the Boss, 'Coat of Midnight'. He gestured to Rein, Amber and Tachikiru "Come on, we'll clear this game on our own." and walked through the door to the second floor with the other three Beta Testers in tow.

Tsume, Anima, Ichigo, Asuna, Saiden, Ryuga, Klein, and Senna all looked on in shock as their friends simply walked away, leaving them alone.

Kibaou stepped in front of the crowd "Anyone who still wants to clear the game follow me, we don't need the Beta Testers to help us."

Most of the clearers erupted into cheers and followed him to the second floor, Tsume and the rest of them found themselves swept up in the crowd and pulled along.

* * *

Rein, Kirito, Tachikiru, and Amber all stood next to each other inside a room in one of the inns on the second floor.

"That worked out about as well as it could have." Rein noted "The only thing that worries me is who will take charge if Diabel isn't there." He raised his hand and opened his menu, sending messages to their friends telling them where to meet them.

A half-hour later there was a knock on the door, Kirito walked over and opened it, letting the rest of their parties in.

"What was that about?" Senna asked, folding her arms and glaring at the Beta Testers.

Rein sighed "The four of us had a feeling that everyone would find out that we were Beta Testers, we came up with a plan for what to do if that happened." He let the information sink in "Basically, the four of us cannot easily get involved in the leadership of the other players anymore; none of them will trust us. This means that most of our work will have to be behind the scenes."

"Get to the point." Senna was still angry.

"My plan is for the twelve of us to form a group; we will meet up once a week at various locations and discuss whatever is necessary." Rein went on "As far as combat ability goes there isn't much left that we could teach you, all you need is practice."

"What will you guys be doing then?" Asuna asked.

"Mostly leveling, mapping, dealing with problematic situations, and trying to lay a bit of a foundation for all the other players to work off of. We will also be present at all of the Boss Fights since I doubt anyone will be dumb enough to refuse our help there." Rein replied.

"Alright, what do you want us to do?" Klein questioned.

"The idea is for you guys to establish yourselves as leaders of some kind. It doesn't really matter what you do, you just need to try and spread out what we taught you to the rest of the players. Ideally you would split into small groups but we'll leave that up to you." Kirito explained.

"I'm going with you four." Senna said firmly.

The Beta Testers looked at each other before Rein spoke "Ok, if that is what you really want to do we won't stop you." Rein paused "Do you guys have any idea who is taking up the position of leader for the clearing group?"

"I am pretty sure it is Kibaou." Ryuga informed.

"Wonderful." Rein said dryly.

"If you can, try to make friends with Agil, I ran into him a lot when leveling and he is a good person." Kirito suggested "I am going to go find him tomorrow and explain the situation."

"Well I think that is all for this meeting, I will contact everyone next time we are going to have a meeting." Rein said.

"Hold up a minute, we are forming a group right?" Klein asked, everyone else nodded slowly, not sure where this was going. Klein smirked "What kind of group doesn't have a name?"

Amber looked at him blankly "Seriously?"

"Of course, we absolutely need a name, and preferably an awesome one." Klein said as though it was common sense.

"Well then do you have any ideas?" Tachikiru said with a sigh.

Klein thought for a moment "How about The Shinigami?" He suggested "It makes sense because we are going to take back control over death from the game."

Rein laughed "You're as clever as always when it comes to names. Unless anyone has any problems with it our name from now on will be The Shinigami."

Kirito walked over to the window and quickly ducked away "Rein, we need to leave now. The other players are starting to move into the town."

Rein nodded "Alright, see you guys next week. Senna, if you are coming with us we are leaving now."

Senna nodded and followed them out the door, leaving Klein, Tsume, Anima, Ichigo, Ryuga, Saiden, and Ichigo to sort out who would group up with whom. After much discussion they eventually sorted themselves into three groups. The first was Klein, Ryuga, and Anima; the second was Tsume and Ichigo; and the third was Saiden and Asuna.

* * *

Words: 5,671

A/N: Don't worry, I will explain all the details for Rein's first Unique Skill in the near future (Most likely next chapter). This sort of sets the stage for the rest of the story, leave me a review and tell me what you think. The next thing I will upload will be a chapter for one of my other stories, Attack on Seireitei. Check it out if you are interested, it also shares the same OCs as this story does, with a few others as well.

Translations:

Saji: Surge (I took off the accent mark on the 'a' because it kept messing up the formatting somehow…)  
Hadan: Breakdown  
Gata: Form


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: First off I really should apologize to everyone who has read my stories, it has been close to two years since I last updated any of my stories. Yes, I was (and still am) incredibly busy and suffering from serious writers block two years is way too long for me to make any real excuse other than my own laziness.

I would like to promise that I won't take any more breaks from my stories, but really I'm not sure I can keep that promise. What I can do though is address some of the problems that led to me wanting to take a break last time. The biggest issue was that I was splitting what time and focus I had over 4 separate stories, from now on I will be working primarily on one story at a time. While I know that is a bit of a disappointment for some people, it is the most effective way to make sure I don't hit a wall. When I find that I can't think of any new content for this story I will just switch over to one of my other stories and work on that until I hit a wall.

In terms of update scheduling I can't promise anything definite yet as I am still working with limited amounts of free time but I will have a better idea for timeframes after I get back into the groove of things. On that note I also should say that I will most likely be rusty in some regards, so the next few chapters may not quite be up to my usual standards. If these chapters turn out very bad I will revisit them later on but for now I hope you can deal with it.

Last thing I promise, throughout this chapter and a few of the coming chapters some of the characters will be hitting twenty-five in their Bond, and that means they will all be getting some unique skills. Most of these unique skills are going to seem very strong, and in some cases completely overpowered. That is my intention. My reasoning behind this is that having all players with exactly the same options is what leads to the formation of a meta (Most effective tactic available) in almost all games. Game balance is never perfect off the bat, and no matter how much you change things some strategy will always rise up as being stronger than everything else. The best way (in my opinion) to counter that is to give each individual player something unique that makes them want to lean towards one strategy. For example, let's say hypothetically that in ZaO a meta evolved that heavily favored blunt two handed weapons but some player came by that had some form of unique skill that made throwing knives deal much more damage than normal. That player would be inclined to take advantage of that skill as long as it was enough to outweigh whatever advantage the two handed blunt weapons offered.

Essentially, the idea is that based on what bonuses you get from your unique skills you will come up with a strategy and playstyle that takes advantage of them even if some other tactic is theoretically the best without counting unique bonuses, allowing every tactic to be a valid option.

Hope you enjoy the chapter.

Zanpakuto Art Online

Chapter 6

* * *

Rein, Kirito, Amber, Senna, and Tachikiru quickly snuck out the back door of the inn where they had just been speaking to the rest of their friends.

"Before we start to split up, there are a few more things I should go over." Rein paused after hearing a multitude of voices coming from the inn behind them. "Unfortunately we are a bit short on time at the moment."

After a few seconds of thought Kirito spoke. "We could just head over to the second town of the floor. It should be pretty easy to talk as we walk and I was planning on heading in that direction anyway."

"Are you sure we can handle the monsters along the way?" Senna asked. "We have no idea how strong they are and we haven't gone through the loot or rested up from the boss fight yet so we aren't at our strongest."

"It will be fine, with a group this large monsters will generally stay away from us." Kirito reassured her while raising his hand and sending out party invites. "Even if they do attack us, a few common enemies should be something we can handle without breaking a sweat."

Amber leaned over and put her arm around Senna's shoulders. "Yeah Senna, don't worry so much. With four of us super awesome Beta Testers around anything that shows up will be a piece of cake."

Tachikiru frowned. "Overconfidence like that is exactly the reason Diabel isn't with us anymore." He warned. "While I agree in this case, you might want to get rid of that mindset now before it becomes a habit."

Senna pushed Amber off of her. "Relax, I just wanted to make sure we were thinking everything through. I have no idea how much the difficulty spikes between floors so I was just asking."

"We don't have any idea either honestly. The game has changed a lot from the Beta so a lot of the information we have could be off by a bit, or even completely wrong." Rein paused as the noise level in the inn increased once again. "Regardless of that we need to head out now. Truthfully I think the mob of angry players behind us will pose more of a threat than any monsters we find along the road to the second town."

The rest of the group nodded in agreement and they set out.

* * *

After a few minutes of running Kirito spoke "Alright we should be far enough away now so we can slow down"

The rest of the group slowed down to a walk.

"What else did you want to go over, Rein?" Tachikiru asked curiously "It seemed like you covered all the important stuff back there."

"Well I just felt like I should mention the kinds of tasks I planned on doing to try and help the rest of the players out." Rein explained. "The rest of you are free to do whatever you want obviously."

Kirito nodded for him to go on.

"I will primarily be focusing on gathering information." Rein continued "Good farming spots, repeatable quests with good rewards, dangerous areas to stay away from, mapping sub-dungeons. I want to find all the information I can and make it readily available to the other players." He let his words sink in. "I also would like to have a complete map of the Labyrinth available as soon as possible."

"I think you're being a bit unrealistic here Rein." Amber commented. "The Labyrinths are way too big for one person to map out completely on their own. Even if all five of us focused entirely on mapping it wouldn't be done before any other players got there."

"I'm aware of that, but I still would like to get enough done to get everyone else started." Rein replied. "If finding just one trap hidden in the first few rooms of a dungeon saves even a single life then it is worthwhile."

"I guess that works for me." Kirito put his hands head and leaned back a bit. "I plan on power leveling anyway so I'll be finding all those quests and farming spots for myself, passing them along to someone else once they aren't useful to me anymore isn't a problem. As far as the mapping is concerned, it just gives me something to do while I am slaughtering every monster I can find in the Labyrinth."

Amber shook her head. "Hey Kirito, I get that you're trying to act cool in front of us ladies and all, but I'm pretty sure the only person here who is even slightly impressed is Rein." She paused while Kirito tripped over a rock. "You might want to try giving some more thought to your target audience."

After a few moments of laughter at Kirito's expense the group calmed down.

"So anyway, now that all the boring stuff is out of the way, what was that ability you used during the boss fight Rein?" Senna asked eagerly.

"What? Hadan? It's the unique skill I unlocked at twenty-five bond." Rein explained. "It works just like blocking with your weapon but it also takes into account the angles and momentum of both weapons. The idea is that I apply exactly enough force in the correct direction to completely nullify or, in the case of the boss fight, redirect the attack so it doesn't hit me. The second part wasn't anything special, just a variation of the same move but instead of defense it is designed for offense. There are plenty of normal offensive skills like it but this one has its warm up time halved if the first form successfully blocks an attack."

"So the skill just automatically blocks any incoming attack?" Tachikiru asked incredulously.

Rein shook his head "No the aiming is manual. From what I can tell I get a little bit of a grace zone but the majority of the control is done by me." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "To be honest it takes a lot of focus to pull off so the only reason it's worth using is due to the combo attacks it leads in to at higher bond levels. It also doesn't work properly on any kind of elemental attacks, the best I can do with those is activate the spell early which doesn't do much good with exploding fireballs."

By now they were entering the second town so they dropped their voices to just barely above a whisper in case any overly eager players had managed to get here ahead of them.

"We should rent a room at an inn and rest up." Kirito suggested. "We can talk more tomorrow."

The rest of the group agreed and they headed over to an inn, rented a room, and settled in to rest. As Rein lay down on the floor he decided to go to his inner world for a bit and level his Bond.

* * *

Rein looked out over the barren monochrome expanse that represented the interior of his mind, coming face to face with his Zanpakuto Spirit.

"You should probably be resting." The Spirit noted. "That was not an easy fight."

"I agree, but I wanted to speak with you for a bit first." Rein replied, lying down on the sand and resting his head on his hands.

"You want to know my thoughts on the situation?" The spirit inquired.

Rein nodded.

"I think it could most certainly have gone better. If Diabel had survived the fight we would be in a much better situation to progress through the game." The Spirit stated.

"Yeah, he had a very charismatic personality and was also very knowledgeable in terms of strategy and tactics." Rein agreed. "Even though his combat ability was lacking and he was a bit less experienced than some of the other Beta Testers he was the absolute worst person for us to lose in that fight. I think he may have been our best shot at unifying the players." He clenched his fist. "Why did he charge in alone like that? He had to be aware of what he was doing and the fact that it was near suicide. What was he thinking?"

"You may have answered your own question." The Spirit answered. "He was trying to unite the players under him."

Rein gave him a quizzical look. "Yes, but dying tends to make it rather difficult to lead."

"Try thinking about it from the point of view of a player like Kibaou." The Spirit hinted.

Rein thought for a few moments before it hit him. "Oh. He was trying to look like some kind of hero. He wanted to be the strong leader who, just when things took a turn for the worse, charged forward, finished off the boss, and saved the day." He paused before continuing. "He wanted to do something to make his low overall combat stats seem unimportant and earn the respect of players who were technically stronger than him. Not to mention how inspiring a story like that would be to all of the scared players sitting back in the starting city."

"Exactly." The Spirit smiled. "The situation is not quite as hopeless as you think though. At least for now the players should be united by their hatred of you and the other Beta Testers. Kibaou may not have the qualities of a good leader, but he did manage to provide everyone with a common enemy. Thanks in no small part to your little performance."

"It was about the only thing I could do at that point." Rein sighed. "I could have easily managed to discredit Kibaou and get a lot of players to follow me, but it wouldn't have lasted long with all of that underlying resentment."

"I think you made the best choice you could have in the situation, and your performance was highly entertaining to watch." The spirit laughed.

"I'm glad you agree." Rein smirked. "Thanks for letting me bounce thoughts off you, it was really helpful." He pulled himself up off the sand and started to bring himself out of his inner world.

"Anytime Rein." The spirit replied as Rein faded away.

* * *

After returning from his inner world he lay down and stared at the ceiling until he eventually fell asleep.

* * *

The group of Beta Testers awoke very early the next morning, there was barely enough light to see much of anything outside. After they had worked the sleep out of their system they sat down to discuss the final details of their plans.

"So before we head out, do any of us know anything about this floor?" Rein asked, looking at the other three beta testers.

"In the beta there was one sub-dungeon that I knew of, but I didn't explore this floor very thoroughly so there could be another hidden away somewhere." Kirito offered. "I plan on taking care of that one on my own but if I hear anything about another I'll let you know."

"I guess the rest of us will split into pairs and do some regular farming then." Tachikiru assumed and the rest of the group nodded in agreement.

"Sounds good. We should probably be aiming for around level twenty-eight before we start to tackle the labyrinth." Rein paused. "Just give me a heads up when you start mapping so we can coordinate our efforts more effectively."

With that the five Beta Testers split into three groups. Amber was sticking with Tachikiru, Rein would stay with Senna, and Kirito was going solo.

* * *

A few hours later back in the first town on the second floor Klein, Ryuga, Saiden, Asuna, Anima, Ichigo, and Tsume woke up as well. They had decided to stay in the room Rein had rented for them to meet in.

After roughly ten minutes Klein spoke up. "Before we split up I guess it would be a good idea to review our stats. Just to make sure everyone has a good idea where their strengths are."

Everyone except Ichigo and Ryuga gave him questioning looks.

"We've been over our stats countless times with Rein." Anima pointed out. "He even gave us the exact formulas used to determine how much damage you will do. I think we have gotten the hang of it by now."

Ichigo gulped "W-Well I know I am fine with it, but some of us, not me of course, might not be the best at math." He paused. "I think we should go over stats one more time just to make sure those people, who I am definitely not one of, understand how everything works."

"Sure, that's fine." Tsume agreed. "Ichigo, since clearly you have the best understanding of how this works, you should help the rest of us out." She smirked. "I can't seem to remember where one of the square roots was supossed to go in the formula for Zanjutsu."

Ryuga and Klein both let out a sigh of relief before giving him a look that seemed to say 'Be strong!'.

(A/N: Just a refresher, the format for this is **Level**/HP/Reiryoku/Reiatsu Control/Reiatsu Sensing/Muscle/Coordination/Speed/**Bond** and the format for skills is Zanjutsu/Hakuda/Hoho/Kido/Their primary weapon skill. Anything in (these things) is a unique bonus that doesn't affect their base stats. Again, stats are only really here for those who are interested and to give a sense of progression, if you aren't interested in the numbers just focus on Level and Bond, the two numbers in bold and you will be fine.)

"S-Sure." Ichigo replied. "I-I'll start with my stats then. I am at **20**/ 625/ 14/ 4/ 1/ 16(21)/ 8(12)/ 6/ **19** and my skills are at 18/ 4/ 5/ 0/ 19." He frowned in concentration for a few moments before continuing. "I guess that my Zanjutsu is still my primary strength?" The last few words came out more like a question than anything else.

Saiden nodded in approval. "Yeah that sounds about right. My stats are currently **20**/ 625/ 10/ 13/ 6/ 13/ 6/ 3/ **17** and my skills are 9/ 2/ 2/ 16/ 15." After sharing his stats he looked at Ichigo expentantly.

Ichigo gulped again "So your greatest strength is Kido with your Zanjutsu also being fairly good but you sacrifice a lot of speed in exchange." Ichigo stated with a bit more confidence now.

Ryuga was quick to speak next. "My stats are at **19**/ 595/ 12/ 4/ 2/ 14(21)/ 10(15)/ 6/ **19** and my stats are at 20/ 3/ 5/ 0/ 21." He looked over at Ichigo expecting a response only for Ichigo to innocently look away and pretend he didn't notice. Ryuga was forced to wing it "So I guess that makes me really good at hitting things with a sword and pretty much useless at everything else."

"Yeah." Anima agreed. "My stats are at **19**/ 595/ 6/ 6/ 4/ 14/ 14/ 4/ **20** and my skills are 20/ 1/ 5/ 3/ 20. That makes my Zanjutsu very good, and both my Hoho and Kido decent."

It was Asuna's turn next. "My stats are at **20**/ 625/ 6/ 6/ 5/ 6/ 15/ 11/ **20** and my skills are 15/ 2/ 6/ 5/ 18. That makes me have a good balance of speed and Zanjutsu but also have passable Kido."

By now Klein seemed to get the idea. "I have my stats at **19**/ 595/ 8/ 10/ 5/ 8/ 10/ 7/ **20** and my skills at 14/ 2/ 4/ 8/ 17. I have a good mix of Zanjutsu and Kido with average speed but my Hakuda is starting to fall behind."

Finally it was Tsume's turn. "I'm at **21**/ 660/ 7/ 10/ 6/ 8/ 11/ 8/ **27** and my stats are at 16/ 1/ 7/ 7/ 23. My Zanjutsu is high, my Kido and Hoho are slightly above average, and my Hakuda is lacking."

"You should have unlocked a new Unique Skill now that your bond is over 25 right?" Ichigo asked curiously.

Tsume nodded. "It's called 'Chain Fangs'." She opened her menu. "The description reads 'Whenever you hit an enemy's weak point with a one-handed curved dagger skill from either hand you can initiate that same attack again with the opposite hand's weapon. If both attacks hit the same weak point the enemy takes bonus damage.' I unlocked it last night while leveling my Bond so I haven't had a chance to try it out yet."

"No reason to keep sitting around here then." Ichigo decided. "It's about time we headed out to start farming anyway."

"Right, just remember what Rein said." Saiden agreed. "We aren't in one large group anymore, so we need to make sure we don't do anything beyond our abilities."

The rest of the group nodded, split into their smaller groups, and headed out of the inn.

* * *

Immediately after leaving the inn in the second town on the second floor Kirito began walking straight in the direction of the sub-dungeon he planned on clearing. While he walked he opened up his menu and navigated over to the status section. He was at **25**/ 800/ 6/ 8/ 8/ 11/ 11/ 10/ **25**. He scrolled down to the skills section, seeing that he was 20(25)/ 2/ 6/ 6. Overall his stats favored Zanjutsu and Hoho over everything else, but he still had high enough Kido to throw in a spell or two if the situation called for it. Finally he scrolled down to the Unique Skills section of the status menu. There were two abilities present, the first one he had unlocked back at twenty Bond, and it was called 'Master of a Simple Tool'. Essentially it increased any damage he dealt with a one-handed sword increase by twenty-five percent as long as he had no other types of weapons or shields equipped. While he certainly knew that the raw damage boost was incredibly powerfull he found the second of his Unique Skills more interesting. He tapped on its entry in his menu, bringing up the details it was titled 'Skill Injection'. There were a two conditions that had to be met for the skill to activate; the first was that 'Master of a Simple Tool' needed to be enabled and the second was that 'Skill Injection' could only be activated after the use of a one-handed sword skill that contained fewer than three hits and did not include any kind of dash. If those conditions were met Kirito had the ability to completely skip the follow through animation of the skill he was using and additionally halve the time that the warm up animation of his next skill took. The biggest downside to the skill was that Kirito had a tiny window of time to activate the second skill to get the bonuses. If the timing hadn't changed from the Beta it would be somewhere between a tenth and a quarter of a second depending on the skill he was using. Perhaps even more limiting was that there was absolutely no kind of indication as to when that window actually was and it was different for every skill. The only way to find it was through trial and error although it usually was close to the point where his sword first made contact with his target.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a loud growl coming from in front of him. Kirito hastily closed his menu and reached to his back to draw his sword. As his hand moved he glanced to either side and assessed his surroundings. He was standing on an uneven grassy field with a higher than normal number of trees in the area. Off about eight meters to his left there was a large boulder roughly five times his height and fifteen meters to his right there was a stream that he had been following to reach his destination. The stream was not so deep that he would be unable to cross it, but an accidental misstep could easily place him in a very bad situation if he wasn't prepared. In front of him there was a small hill without any trees and on top of that hill there was the source of the growl that had drawn his attention. The monster was called a 'Feral Cyote'. It had brown fur, bright red eyes, and its shoulders were roughly level with Kirito's waist. That was all the detail he had time to take in before his hand touched the hilt of his sword and the fight began.

Kirito started off the fight by using Shunpo to move closer to the rock on his left, knowing that it could be used to his advantage if necessecary. He then finished drawing the blade off his back and pointed it directly at the monster, which had already begun charging in his direction. Kirito knew that the monster would make an attack the second it was in range so he prepared himself to block whatever attack it would start with. The cyote suddenly blurred and, even though Kirito had been prepared, he just barely managed to bring his blade up into a position to stop the swipe from the monsters paw. Shaking off his shock he used Shunpo once again to move behind his target, instantly pulling his sword backwards directly away from the monster. When his eyes were aligned with the center of his weapon he pushed it slightly forward and noted the faint white glow along the edges of the blade that indicated he had successfully executed a sword skill. The blade shot forward towards the target as the skill overtook the movement of Kirito's upper body and right arm. A fraction of a second afterwards the tip of the blade pierced the monsters flesh and Kirito immediately input the motion for a basic upward slash skill.

It didn't work. His eyes widened in shock, the timing for his Unique Skill had changed from the Beta. He stood there helplessly, caught in the follow through animation of his stabbing skill, as soon as that animation finished the skill he had tried to inject started its warm up animation. The skill never had time to activate, the monster spun around and pounded its paw into Kirito's right side with a huge amount of force. He was lifted up off the ground and sent flying, he skipped once off the ground before landing back first in the stream he had been following earlier. Kirito quickly checked his HP bar, it read six-hundred out of eight-hundred. That attack and the resulting collision damage from his flight had taken a full quarter of his health. His hand began shaking. If he made that same mistake three more times he would be dead. The fight had been going on for less than five seconds, he could very easily be dead in the next fifteen seconds. He wondered what would happen. Would everything vanish instantly or would he feel the headset slowly incubate his brain with microwaves until it completly stopped functioning. The cyote began walking towards him, clearly intending to finish him off. Kirito shook himself, forcing the dark thoughts and fear to the back of his mind. He knew that it didn't matter how quickly his life could end. All he needed to do is win and he would be perfectly fine. He latched onto that thought of victory, dedicating himself entirely to it. His mind began sifting through options and possibilities, looking for ways that he could win. A vast majority of those options started with him climbing out of the stream so he did that, pulling himself up the opposing shore to relative safety and immediately setting his eyes on his opponent.

When the cyote reached the edge of the stream it stopped and started looking up and down the stream as though it was confused. Kirito's eyes widened in realization and a smirk appeared on his face. The monster was looking for a way to cross the stream, the place where it had launched him to was either too deep or too wide for the cyote to safely cross so it was trying to find a better spot.

Kirito let out a sigh of relief. He had time, that was all that he needed. He quickly set himself up in front of a tree and readied his blade, executing the same skill he had attempted on the monster earlier. For good measure he attempted to transition into the next skill right when the blade bit into the bark of the tree but was unsurprised to find that his Unique Skill did not activate. He wanted to try out every possible window of time, but he knew that it would be an awful idea. The skill he was using took approximately one-and-a-half seconds to complete, in addition the second skill took roughly the same amount of time, not to mention that he needed to wait five seconds for the cooldowns to come back, totaling eight seconds for every attempt. Since the window of time was potentially a tenth of a second he would need exactly two minutes to try every combination, which was more time than he had. Not to mention that he would be wasting an absurd amount of Reiryoku and certainly be forced to go back to the town immediately. He needed to think about this logically. The goal of his Unique Skill was to unleash a never ending torrent of attacks as quickly and effeciently as possible. If he was trying to do that with a real sword when would be begin preparing for his next attack? Just as his first strike made contact with an enemy? No. Pulling the blade in some other direction before the swipe would make the attack less effective. The only time you would be able to do it without interfering with the first attack would be after the blade had passed through his enemy. There was his answer.

Just to be on the safe side he attacked the tree once more with a stab, the exact moment the tip of the blade appeared on the other side of the trunk he input the motion to activate an upward slash. He felt the all too familliar jerk that came along with the transition between two skills; the faint white light coating his blade instantly changed to green and the second skill executed successfully. Before the two halves of the tree had even touched the ground Kirito was preparing to resume his fight with the Cyote, which had just finished crossing the stream and was rapidly making its way towards him. He mentally started counting down the time remaining until he could use his skills again. Four seconds remaining and the Cyote started charging. Three seconds remaining and the Cyote was at the halfway point between the stream and Kirito. Two seconds and the Cyote's movement blurred as it crossed the last bit of distance. Before Kirito could even mentally say one the monster was right in front of him with its paw already raised, it had moved well over twice as fast as it had the previous time. He used Shunpo-ed backwards a full meter, ignoring the small decrease in his hp bar and the two tiny gashes on his cheek showing just how close he was to losing another quarter of his health. The Cyote did not stop there, it launched itself forwards at Kirito with immense speed, opening its jaws and tilting its head to the side so as to latch on to Kirito's neck. Based on the intense red light glinting off each and every one of its teeth and the fact that the neck was considered a weak point for players the incoming attack would be fatal if it landed. He still had three quarters of a second before he could use the first skill of his planned combo. He had just used Shunpo and would not be able to use it again until long after the Cyote reached him. He was out of options.

Kirito grit his teeth. He raised his sword to his left side and prepared to use a different skill. He now had less than a quarter of a second until the monster's jaws would close around his neck but he couldn't let that distract him. He let lose the sword skill, a plain horizontal slash from left to right. The blade entered into the Cyote's virtual flesh and Kirito suppressed his muscle memory telling him to activate his next skill. He kept all his focus on the location where he knew his blade would appear on the other side of his opponent. The moment he saw the tiniest glint of metal he activated another skill, feeling the familiar jerk and changing the color of the blade's glow to red as he performed the reverse of his first skill: a plain horizontal slash from right to left. He did not stop there; again he watched for the glint of metal on the other side of the Cyote's head. When he saw it he activated his next skill, a diagonal slash from the upper left to the bottom right, followed again by the reverse, then a slash from the bottom right to the upper left followed by yet another reverse, and finally a vertical downward slash.

There was a bright glimmer of light, all around him he saw shining polygons. After what felt like an hour they began to blink out one by one, leaving Kirito standing still breathless in the grassy field where he had fought the Cyote. A few seconds later he accepted the loot rewards from his victory, walked over to the nearest tree, and sat down with his back against it. All he could think about was how relieved he was that he was not yet able to read the hp bars of enemies. He had absolutely no desire to know how close that had been.

* * *

Words (Without A/Ns): 4985

A/N: Before I say anything else, I just want to ask what your opinions were of the fight at the end. I tried a bit of a different approach using a lot of shorter, more disjointed sentences to try and convey the fight from the point of view of the person involved instead of an observer. I would really appreciate some feedback on that so I know if I should keep on doing fights that way (Not all of them, but I definitely think this works better for the life or death types of fights.

I'm sure some of you are a little bit annoyed that Kirito almost just died to some random enemy. Don't treat this as too much a representation of his strength. A lot of this chapter was me trying to get myself back into the feel of writing and I didn't want anything too important to happen before I felt like I was back up to my personal standards.

Also, in terms of my plans for this story, I have mentioned this before but I will say it again. I do plan on hitting every one of the floors in ZaO. While that certainly sets me up to have plenty content coming up it also means that I will need to come up with at **least** one-hundred unique bosses and dungeons, just for the floor bosses. If I keep doing sub-dungeons that number goes even higher. To that end I am **very** open to suggestions. I will take any idea I can get essentially, even a list cool bosses from games you've played would be helpful so please don't hesitate to throw any ideas you have my way.

Regardless, toss me a review or a pm if you feel like saying something. Or don't toss one if you don't feel like saying something. If any of you are still here from when I first started this or one of my other stories let me know, I really appreciate you sticking with me for such a long time.


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